Organizing Your Home Healthcare

Home healthcare items often end up getting put wherever there’s a space for them rather than properly organized and managed. If this sounds familiar, make 2021 the year you get on top of your home healthcare. Here are some tips.

Corral everything together

If you have medicines that need to be kept in the fridge, then take a photo of each of them. Corral everything else together so you can go through it properly.

Purge all out of date items

Never keep out of date medical items. At best, they’ll have lost their efficiency. Out of date medications can generally be taken to a pharmacist. Other items usually just have to go in the bin, although packaging can often be recycled.

Split out items according to use

Macro-sort your items into first-aid items, general home-health items, and personal healthcare items. You might also want to create a category for travel items. Even if you don’t travel often, it can be handy to have a travel-pack of items ready prepared. That way, you can just pop it in your luggage and be good to go.

You may find that some items could fit into more than one category. If so, this is one of the few occasions when it’s often justified to have duplicates or even multiples of the same item. If you only want to have one of each item, then prioritize the first aid pile. This is the one you’re most likely to grab in an emergency.

Work out what you actually have

Open up packaging and check what it actually contains. Make sure that what’s inside tallies with what it says outside. When people are in a hurry, it’s easy to put things back in the wrong packaging. Usually, this is just a minor issue but with healthcare items, it can be a big deal. Check how much is actually in each package and how close it is to the expiry date.

Double-check how each item needs to be stored

Any time you get a new type of medication, you need to check the storage instructions. Even if you’ve had the same sort of medication before, you may find that your new prescription (or purchase) needs different care. For example,  may need to be stored in different ways. Take the storage instructions seriously.

If medicines have to be stored in a fridge, then it can be helpful to keep them in a mini-fridge out of the kitchen. This keeps your medication (and possibly skincare items) clearly separate from your food. If you can’t do this, then put your medical items into their own container and make sure that it is very obvious that it is medicine, not food.

Invest in a proper first aid box

First aid boxes are for emergencies. This means that they need to be both visible and accessible (to adults and older children). Generally, the best way to make sure that a first aid box is visible is to buy a proper first aid box in a bright color with clear labeling. The best way to keep a first aid box accessible is usually to mount it on a wall.

This may seem excessive for a home situation. The whole point about first aid boxes, however, is that you don’t know when they’re going to be needed, by whom or why. This means you need to be prepared for the worst.

Items also need to be accessible from inside the first aid box. This means that you generally want the box to be on the larger side. Larger boxes make it easier to remove items without having to move piles of other items out of the way first. Larger boxes also have space for containers to corral smaller items.

Choose the right storage for other items

Even though other home healthcare items may not be used in emergencies, generally, you still want them to be visible. This means that, if possible, you should keep them near where they are likely to be used. Ideally, you should also keep them in clear containers. This does, however, need to be balanced with safety, especially for children and pets.

Realistically, therefore, most people are probably going to end up keeping most of their home healthcare items in the bathroom. If that’s the case, then you’re also going to need to think about protecting them from changing temperatures and steam. This doesn’t have to be a major issue, it just means that you need to choose your containers with care.