Special medical furniture saves both space and time

Text: Karoli Noor

Images: Andres Raudjalg

Staying organised is very important in health care institutions. However, in many health care facilities, medicines and supplies continue to be stored in kitchen style cabinets, where order is easily lost. Merianto Medical, specialising in medical furniture, has made it its mission to improve the situation.

Modern-day advanced medicine means, among other things, a huge amount of various medicinal products and supplies. Ironically, high-end equipment and drugs are often stored in cabinets where they are difficult to organise. With the help of a well-designed system, you can avoid medicines going past their use-by date and more quickly find the right items.

Läänemaa County hospital is one of those who have decided to test Merianto Medical furniture. According to Marju Lepmets, the hospital’s Nursing Manager, one set of special medical furniture was installed in their intensive care unit to test whether the investment pays off in the work process. According to Lepmets, the initial feedback from the staff has been very positive.

“In the new cabinet, you can quickly see if you have enough medicines or you are running out. In the past, you had to empty half a cabinet or an entire shelf to get an idea. Now all I have to do is pull out the drawer with the right label and I see immediately how many medicines we have left,” says Lepmets describing her experience.

The modular system at the heart of the cabinets

The Merianto Medical furniture series is based on the ISO modular system, using 600 × 400 mm and 400 × 300 mm baskets, and the dimensions of the cabinets are based on the dimensions of the modular system. There are high and low cabinets with and without refrigerators for medicines and supplies. “While developing the cabinet system, we received a lot of feedback from healthcare institutions, and based on this, we designed the cabinets to meet the greatest needs,” explains Raimo Grichin, Managing Director of Merianto Medical.

The cabinets are assembled according to the needs of the specific department and the space available. Modular furniture is very easy to adapt to the available space. After hearing the customer’s wishes, Merianto makes a drawing to visualise the future cabinet and make sure the result meets the customer’s expectations. In this way, the entire available surface can be used and up to 60% space saved.

To access the contents of the cabinets as quickly and conveniently as possible, you can choose the door type for each cabinet. There are six types of ‘facades’ to choose from – open, door, glass door, pivot slide door, drawer and roller door. You can also choose the finish according to your taste. The material for the cabinets was chosen with a view to strict requirements for durability and frequent disinfection and cleaning.

All facade types are also designed for locking. Locks can be grouped as desired so they are compatible with other cabinets in the same room, floor or other zone. The basic option is a mechanical furniture lock, but you can also choose an electronic code lock or a smart card lock.

Carefully planned systemguarantees success

Inside the cabinets are ISO modular system baskets, which simply slide out of the cabinet and can be placed in the cabinet either way. Since there are standard side panels inside the cabinets, the baskets can also be exchanged or combined. For example, a basket full of medicines can be taken from the storage room, placed in a trolley and transferred to the medicine cabinet.

The baskets ensure that everything put in the cabinet can be easily taken out. Inside the baskets are dividers to easily separate the contents. “The dividers make a slot of the right size for every item,” explains Grichin. There are two types of dividers – adjustable by steps and sliding. The space saving is greatest when both are used.

Both the baskets and dividers are made of easy-to-clean and durable material. One basket holds up to 20 kg of the necessary supplies. Label holders of different sizes and fastening types can be attached to the baskets so that everything stays in its place and can be quickly found even by new employees.

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