Ideas That Work: Tool Organization

With all the pressure central sterile staff are under to keep cases flowing through high-volume facilities, the last thing you want to do is give them an excuse to avoid retrieving a much-needed back-up instrument. And if your back-up instrument room is a disorganized mess, busy staff simply aren't going to waste their precious time hunting through the clutter. That's why we went to great lengths to ensure every SPD staff member can find needed back-up instruments in seconds. We created an alpha-numeric grid system and placed a location key directly adjacent to it for staff to reference. The instruments are wall-mounted and arranged horizontally by letter and vertically by number. They're also listed alphabetically in the storage location key. So, for instance, if someone needs a perforating towel clip, she simply has to look under "P" on the key, see 1K as the location and follow the easy-to-navigate wall-mounting grid to locate the tool. No more scouring through disorganized bins!

William DeLuca, CRCST, CHL, CIS
Mount Sinai West
New York, N.Y.
[email protected]