For Nurses: Ideas for How To Organize Your Supplies in Your Car

I know this is different than the usual posts, but after several unsuccessful attempts of trying to post in a nursing forum, I've resorted to this blog spot. I apologize in advance for those of you not interested in this stuff - and I'll throw in a quick apology for my humor or lack thereof. 

When I first began hospice nursing I looked up tips on how to organize my car for the extra supplies I may need during home visits. There were only 2 forums that I found but neither of them really helped me. So I created my own system and over time it became more and more organized. 

I believe all organizing starts out this way. Starting with grouping - you attempt at your basic organizational set-up and then over time you narrow down to a more detailed organization. 

It's a process, a very long process, but it's a process that we all hope results in a reward. The reward being that you can find what you need when you need it or just show off to your coworkers, whatever, I wont judge. 

I'm sure my system will change again as I go along, but until then I hope this helps someone who is seeking advice on organizing their patient supplies. 

So here you go Home Health/Hospice Nurses,

Use this as your guideline to create your own system!

Items Used: 

1 large clear box - 

1Medium clear box

 1 Small box

Rubber Bands

Index cards

Label Maker

Gallon, Pint and Sandwich Ziplock Freezer Bags

 (freezer bags are more heavy duty )

3 Boxes for me makes it easy to take it out of my trunk and store it when I'm not working. 

My Trunk: (Right Side=  Large box, Bed pans and Foley items i.e.: leg bags, irrigation kits, insertion kits, extra iodine - etc. Middle = Medium box wound care items like duoderms, aquacels, tegaderms, gauze, tape, normal saline, ointments like A&D, calmoseptine - a skin barrier cream, triple antibiotic, surgilube, etc) to Left Side= Small Box misc./other i.e.: enema, cat litter - for disposing rx, ace wrap, mouth swabs, specimen collection containers, blood draw items ... literally etc and normally stuff I don't use as often. Back = boxes of gloves, adult briefs and chux. These items I only cary a handful because the home health aids deliver these each week on their visits but I have them just in case. ) You can lay your foley catheters flat in front, on top or to the side of the foley supplies box. I'm lucky in that my trunk normally stays the coolest out of my whole car, must be an old car, so take temperature into consideration when organizing your items. 

More close up view....

Here is what I did with the foley catheters. First I grouped the foley catheters by size. See below I have size 16 french with various balloons. I grouped all size 16, 18, 20 and 22. I cut an index card in a fourth, wrote on the index card and hole punched the index card. I stuck the rubber band through the index card it and loosely wrapped it around the foley catheters - not tight - you don't want to kink those things! I love that I can just grab the size I need...Also by doing it this way I will know how many I have left of, say, size 16. Store these catheters flat.

To the Left: I have all my irrigation and insertion kits. I grouped them by 2 using a rubber band. That way I can easily grab 2 when I go into a patients house that needs a foley insertion/irrigation. 
Why take two? Just in case you make a mistake, but since you probably never make mistakes then you have an extra one to leave at the house for the future on-call nurse. That nurse will love you for being prepared and leaving an extra for them 
(that on-call nurse being me!)

Left: is a close up of the gallon bag I used to label "cath bags" (I dont like using too much label tape so I abbreviate everything - label tape is expensive, man!) Organizing doesn't have to cost much - just use what you have! I find that gallon, pint and sandwich bags are space savers compared to using boxes.  This "Cath Bags" bag - contains those fancy leg straps, leg bags and bed bags. Now we're getting somewhere! 




Below: I have wound care and related items. Using a large bag, I labeled a category of items used. Then using smaller bags to group specific items that fell under that category. Place these small bagged items in the category bag.
IE: All those annoying, but oh-so-helpful, little packets of ointments! Like triple antibiotic ointments, skin protector ointment, A&D ointment etc. For those I put all my triple antibiotic in a sandwich bag and labeled it "AAA", Calmoseptine which I labeled "Calmo" and etc.  I put those smaller labeled bags of ointment in a larger bag and labeled it "Ointments".  
So when I open the bag "ointments" I can quickly flip through the inner bags and grab the ointment i need without having to pull them all out! (see pictures below) I did this same technique with my wound dressings and gauze. For larger flat dressing items that don't fit in a bag (i.e. sacral wound dressings) I placed those on the bottom of the box. For other misc wound care supplies I put in their own bag, like sterile q-tips or kerlix wrap. In case you couldn't tell, I love wound care so I dedicated a whole box for it! 

On the side of my wound care box I keep a few bottles of normal saline and some tape. I always leave these at the patient home/facility if they have wounds (I go through tape and NS like candy - very sticky salty candy.... by having it here I can see that I need to refill on my tape and NS supplies- like pronto!)









Could I go on? Why yes I could, but for your sake I wont. 

Comment below if you found this helpful, would like more, or if you have your own tricks up your *ahem* trunk. 

Hope you have a wonderful blessed day!