Taking advantage of your carousel space.

I have posted many times on our system for barcoding medications in the pharmacy. The posts have included reference to our efforts to increase storage space.  Our goals have always been to store as many medications as possible within the carousel to take advantage of the software’s many safety features and inventory functionality. 

Like all pharmacy departments we have several medication items that do not require significant storage space. I am talking about items like ophthalmic drops, otic preparations, small ointments and creams and some injectable items that are stocked in small quantities secondary to expense and lack of use. 

During installation of our carousels we noticed small gaps in the shelving units. We approached one of the White Systems engineers on site and inquired about the small gaps. I don’t recall exactly why they were there, but the small size made the space virtually useless. Fortunately for us, the Talyst consultant that was on site to help us with the installation process sat down with us to come up with a solution. It was a simple idea really, but quite ingenious.  We purchased small bins that fit perfectly into the empty spaces. The size of the bin limited their utility for storage, but worked nicely for the smaller items mentioned above. The addition of the smaller bins created several empty spaces in the larger bins, giving us significantly more storage.