Storage for the healthcare industry is Spacesaver's® passion – putting our knowledge and dedication into this area benefits both providers and patients, which explains why we are very active in the healthcare field. Our constant innovation of storage solutions has allowed us to affect facilities from top to bottom, in the OR and through the sterile corridors.
This month Spacesaver will be attending the 24th Annual Healthcare Facilities Symposium and Expo, in Chicago, Illinois. The Symposium will be held at Chicago’s famous Navy Pier on September 20th - 22nd. In attendance will be a wide range of healthcare professionals from designers and architects to the deans of medical faculty. Attendees will gain valuable knowledge from the speakers specializing in various healthcare fields, including one from Spacesaver’s own, Jason Freeman. Jason will be on a panel entitled “Health Records Revolution: On and Off-Site Workflow Solutions", digging deep into your on-site and off-site storage needs while discussing technological advancements in the area, along with Darice Grzybowski from HIMentors, LLC and David Moehring from the University of Illinois - Chicago.
Additionally the event will be the début for new products and technology utilized in the healthcare field. Access and knowledge of these product and technology innovations will improve facilities, allowing the benefits to be felt by the patients and providers.
At last year’s HFSE event, Spacesaver took home three awards for our CoreSTOR® Patient Server product: Architect’s Choice, Most Innovative, and Best in Show.
The awards added fuel to our passion within the field to keep innovating and evolving to cater to the constantly changing needs of healthcare professionals. This year we've introduced our ControLOC Technology™ and ActivRAC® 7M products to support healthcare. We will have extensive information on each of the products at booth #703 during the show.
Spacesaver is also welcoming the RFID company, LogiTag, as a partner in our booth. We will be showcasing LogiTag's range of applications designed for the healthcare industry including their StockBox. LogiTag's StockBox is a generously adaptable inventory management product that can be integrated into existing shelving and numerous other areas. RFID technology allows the StockBox to manage its inventory, which increases productivity while decreasing cost. StockBox’s automation allows dispensable requests and off site monitoring results in an overall streamlined process.
Spacesaver understands the need for healthcare institutions to improve their business practices and patient care efforts. We will also be featuring information about LogiTag's other healthcare products, which include Smart Cabinet, LogiTrack and Smart Sense.
We hope to see you at Booth #703 to check out some of the best products the show has to offer!
Want more information on Spacesaver Healthcare Products?
I recently took a field trip to Appleton Wisconsin to see our CoreSTOR™ Patient Server in action!
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The visit was prompted by a presentation I had recently given to a local design firm, during which I was asked how a hospital could store supplies in a patient room without actually contaminating the room or infecting the next patient to stay in that room. Not being familiar with these aspects of Healthcare facility design, I was totally stumped. |
So I headed north to see why and how this product has been so successful for the Appleton Medical Center and their Collaborative Care Model.
After my tour and discussions with the Appleton Medical Center’s staff I have a much clearer understanding of how the CoreSTOR units can be used even when a patient is seriously ill and there is a threat of spreading infection.
| First and foremost, the patient server was designed to sit outside of the four-foot radius that houses droplets and airborne contaminants (according to the Center for Disease Control (CDC) guidelines). |
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This is the main reason a patient server can still sit within a patient’s room, and yet not become contaminated.
These additional steps were also implemented to prevent the spread of any infectious disease when using the patient server:
- No entry is allowed into the patient server while wearing the same gloves used to treat the patient.
- Gel, sinks and glove disposal have all become part of a visual queuing system to remind nurses to dispose of gloves and wash hands before entry into the CoreSTOR.
Not only are patients recovering quicker at the Appleton Medical Center, but staff says:
- 92% of the items are now in the patient room
- There are rules the staff must follow with the server
- Tag what needs to be re-stocked.
- Materials management orders today for what they need tomorrow and now stocks on a seven-day rotation instead of five.
- Nurses site less fatigue (from running all day) as the biggest win of the new system
- Materials Management staff sites feeling like a part of the patient care team as the biggest win of the new system.
To learn more Contact Spacesaver or:
| Download the Point-of-Need Storage Kit. |
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~Julie Weber, Storage Enthusiast
Dear CNO,
What if…..your already scarce nursing staff could spend two-and-a-half more hours every 12 hour shift, focusing on patients; instead of running around the fifth floor like a chicken with their head cut off looking for a gauze pad?
What if…..your floor, wing, or entire healthcare system could go a straight 270 days without a hospital acquired infection?
What if…..your storage process could reduce traffic in patient rooms by as much as 75 percent?
Guess what….. IT’S HAPPENING!
Just ask the hospital operated by ThedaCare in Appleton, Wis. They achieved the goals mentioned above by re-evaluating their current storage system and incorporated a new type of storage that puts 85 percent of the most frequently used supplies steps from the patient bedside.
The numbers don’t lie, and it certainly helps to look good when you have to report to the CFO every month. How much would you give to report statistics like ThedaCare did? While ThedaCare was creating their impressive stat sheet, they also achieved patient scores above 90 percent for overall satisfaction. The juice is proving it’s worth the squeeze as ThedaCare experiences huge returns on their investment. By combining a new approach to patient care and redesigning the patient floor with a few unique innovations, ThedaCare has:
- Lowered the cost of care by 21 percent
- Reduced the length of patient stays by 17 percent
- Produced 100 percent compliance in nearly all quality measures
With all the wasted efforts nurses are facing, Spacesaver saw an opportunity to try and help better the system and made it a priority to study how your staff can spend more time delivering direct patient care. The results of this study produced CoreSTOR™ patient server. Here are some of the specific problems that were solved by developing a new way of storing supplies:
1. Keep clean linens from being confused with soiled linens
2. Eliminate time spent “hunting and gathering” by nurses
3. Eliminate in room traffic and interruptions in patient rooms
4. Reduce hospital acquired infections
Within all of these problems lies one key solution: Decentralization. Think about it; all of your nurses probably have one centralized supply room that they use on the floor, which necessitates hunting and gathering. By eliminating centralization and incorporating supplies directly inside and outside each patient room, you are essentially solving all four of the aforementioned problems.
ThedaCare tested the CoreSTOR patient server in one wing of their hospital system and experienced tremendous returns both financially and in the delivery of patient care. They are now requesting additional installs into other parts of their hospital.
CoreSTOR has been designed to build a decentralized nurse station inside and outside of each patient room, reducing in-room traffic, optimizing floor plans and room design to best serve the patient. According to the Minneapolis Star Tribune, Jamie Dunham, a lead nurse on the pilot project, Transforming Care, at ThedaCare hospital in Appleton, states her point of view,"If they (nurses) have what they need, they don't have to leave the patient constantly and apologize." Dunham also said, "They are still tired at the end of a shift, because nursing is demanding work, but they have [more] satisfaction with the work that they do. In nurse surveys, the satisfaction rate has jumped 68 percent.”
Read more about what hospitals in Minnesota are doing to spend more time with patients...
As more healthcare systems implement this storage idea into their facilities, a streamlined process is created for a more comfortable work environment – and most importantly – improved patient outcomes.
Kacia Gillette - Storage Enthusiast
CoreSTOR Patient Server Hooks Attention From FOX News
Watch the full video below to learn what all of the buzz is about.
If you are unable to see this video click here.
Video Credit : Fox News - Collaborative Care, Primary Care 12:35
Read the full ThedaCare case study or download this Transforming Patient Care with Storage Kit here...
Learn more about how point-of-need healthcare storage can greatly increase efficiencies, minimize unnecessary in-room patient interruptions, and reduce hospital-acquired infections.