Plastic Drawer Storage System

An interventional suite stores some of the most expensive single-use inventory in the hospital in rooms that were rarely drawn with storage in mind. Good cath lab storage keeps every catheter, wire and closure device visible, protected and one short walk from the table — without tying up capital in duplicate stock nobody can find. Labs USA plans, specifies and quotes storage for cath labs and interventional radiology, and coordinates delivery and installation, as a supplier and project partner. We are not the manufacturer.

Supply room aisle between wire shelving runs stocked with rows of blue bins
4storage zones in a typical interventional suite
Freelayout and needs assessment
Phasedinstalls around a live procedure schedule
Nationwidedelivery and install coordination

Why interventional storage is its own problem

Three things separate a cath lab supply room from every other storeroom in the building: the shape of the stock, the price of the stock, and how fast a case can change.

The shape. Catheters, guidewires and sheaths ship in long, flat boxes — often several feet long, a fraction of an inch thick. Lay them flat on deep shelves and the box you need is always under six others. The workable patterns store them on edge, like records in a crate: vertical dividers on shelving, slotted inserts, or shallow angled positions where the label edge faces the aisle.

The price. A single drug-eluting device can cost more than the shelving bay it sits on. Misplaced stock is not an annoyance here; it is real money expiring in the wrong slot.

The pace. A planned radial case becomes something else mid-procedure, and the circulator has seconds to find a different length or diameter. Storage that depends on one person’s memory fails exactly then.

Wire shelf with vertical dividers holding long flat boxes upright

Everything below follows from those three facts, and none of it requires exotic hardware — it requires the right dimensions, dividers and labels in the right places.

The storage problems cath labs actually have

Length is the sort key nobody designed for

Interventional stock is picked by device family, then by length and diameter — but most supply rooms are organised by vendor carton, because that is how the boxes arrived. Re-slotting so that each family runs in one direction, with lengths in order and the size printed at the aisle face, is the cheapest capacity upgrade an interventional suite can buy. It also makes a missing size obvious as a gap in the sequence rather than a discovery at the table.

High-value stock hides in plain sight

When a room mixes commodity consumables with high-value devices on the same run, the expensive items get neither the visibility nor the discipline they need. Separating a defined high-value zone — shallow positions, one item per slot, a counted location for each device — lets your team run tighter counts on the stock that matters without slowing down everyday picking. Where your policies call for enclosed or lockable positions, we plan cabinet space into the same footprint and design to the security criteria your team provides.

Expiry rotation fails on deep shelves

Dated stock has to move front-to-back: new stock loads behind, picks come from the front. Deep flat shelves defeat that instantly because nobody can reach the back. Shallow positions, angled or gravity-fed bins, and slots sized to the actual box are what make first-in-first-out physically easy instead of a policy people work around. Dividers that hold each box upright mean the shortest-dated unit is the one your hand lands on.

Red divided shelf bin holding collection tubes and small packaged items

The room is too far from the table

Every step between the procedure room and the supply room is a step taken mid-case, in lead. Adjacency is a layout decision: the highest-turn stock belongs in the control-room corridor or just inside the procedure room door, on shallow wall-mounted runs or a compact cart, replenished from the main room on a schedule. The main room then holds depth of stock, not speed of access.

Hybrid and multi-room suites split the inventory

When a second or third room opens, the same device list quietly gets stocked in two or three places, and total inventory climbs without anyone deciding it should. The pattern that holds is one main store with satellite point-of-use positions per room — each satellite carries a short, agreed list, and the count lives in one place.

Nobody owns the slot map

Interventional stock changes constantly — new vendors, new lengths, discontinued lines. A storage layout without a named owner and a re-slotting habit degrades in months. We leave every project with a labelled slot map your team can maintain, because storage that cannot absorb next quarter’s product change was never really finished.

Mobile wire cart with slanted pull-out baskets for angled visibility
Quick diagnostic. Boxes stored flat in stacks, two slots for the same device, expired stock found at the back of a shelf, a hand-written label on the high-value run, or a mid-case walk that leaves the suite — each points at one of the problems above. Photograph them before you call us; pictures of the problem spots are the most useful input to a layout we can get.

Zoning an interventional suite

Most cath lab and IR storage plans come down to four zones. Naming and sizing them turns a floor-space argument into a set of numbers.

  • Main supply room — device families in length order on vertical or angled positions, commodity stock on standard shelving, depth of inventory lives here
  • High-value zone — shallow, counted, one device per slot, enclosed or lockable where your policies require it
  • Point-of-use positions — a short agreed list at each procedure room, on wall rails, shallow shelving or a compact cart
  • Receiving and rotation space — somewhere to stage incoming stock so it loads behind existing dated stock, not in front of it

Aisles follow from what moves through them — usually a cart and a person passing, occasionally a bed. We check clearances, door swings and the route from receiving to the main room at layout stage, because those corrections get expensive after installation.

Six-shelf chrome wire cart on casters for procedure room replenishment

When the room simply is not big enough

Interventional suites grow procedures faster than they grow storage. Three levers, in cost order: re-slot what is already there (length-ordered vertical storage recovers a surprising amount of a room); go shallower and taller against the walls within reach limits; or remove fixed aisles with mobile carriages so aisle floor becomes storage.

How those work in practice: high-density healthcare storage, hospital mobile shelving and healthcare shelving. If the constraint is really the building, that is a planning conversation — see storage planning for new construction and expansion.

Blue mobile bin holding rows of packaged single-use supplies

Where storage lands in a cath lab

Assorted color-coded shelf bins for separating supply categoriesColour-separated device familiesOne colour per family or per procedure type, so a wrong put-away is visible from the aisle.
Small dividable bins in several colors for fine parts separationSmall accessory organisationStopcocks, torque devices and connectors in divided bins sized to the item, not the carton.
Wire shelf with built-in dividers creating fixed slotsSlotted shelf positionsFixed slots that hold boxed devices upright with the size label facing the picker.

Which storage families an interventional suite usually needs

Dimensions, materials, finishes, load ratings and configuration detail live on the product pages — this page deliberately carries none of that. Start here:

Enclosed storage unit with a clear tip-out bin frontMedical Storage CabinetsEnclosed and catheter-length storage: cabinet types, visibility options and configuration guidance for high-value device zones.
Four-shelf chrome wire shelving unitHealthcare ShelvingThe backbone of the main supply room: wire, solid and polymer shelf types plus dividers, baskets and label accessories.
Five-shelf green epoxy coated wire shelving unitHigh-Density StorageAisle removal for a supply room that cannot grow, sized from your floor, doors and loading.

Also relevant, depending on how your suite runs:

How a cath lab storage project runs

1Walk the suiteMain room, corridors, control rooms and each procedure room. Dimensions, doors, clearances, and where stock actually sits today.
2List the inventoryDevice families, lengths, turn rates and your high-value list, so slot counts come from your case mix rather than a rule of thumb.
3Zone and lay outThe four zones drawn with aisles, reach limits and per-room point-of-use positions, including expansion slots for next year’s device lines.
4Specify and quoteFamilies, dimensions, dividers and finishes with freight, installation scope and lead times so the work can be phased.
5Install around the scheduleBay by bay in your low-volume windows, with displaced stock on temporary shelving and every phase left clean and usable.

Get the supply room laid out before you order shelving

Send room dimensions, your device-family list and a couple of photos of the problem spots. The Healthcare Storage Design Center gives you layout support, intake checklists and planning tools at no charge and no obligation.

The departments on either side of the cath lab

Interventional storage touches surgery, the emergency department and central supply — a plan that ignores where stock comes from moves the problem down the corridor.

Related products and resources

Cath lab storage FAQ

What is the best way to store catheters and guidewires?
On edge, in slots, in length order. Long boxed devices stored flat on deep shelves hide behind each other and defeat date rotation. Vertical dividers, slotted inserts or shallow angled positions keep each box visible with its size at the aisle face, and make a missing length obvious as a gap. The right hardware depends on your device mix — that is what the layout visit establishes.
How should high-value devices be stored differently from everyday stock?
Give them their own zone: shallow positions, one device per counted slot, and enclosed or lockable storage where your facility’s policies require it. Mixing high-value devices into commodity runs is how they end up miscounted, misplaced or expired. We design the security arrangements to the criteria your team provides.
How do we keep dated stock rotating properly?
Make first-in-first-out physically easy: shallow or angled positions loaded from behind and picked from the front, slots sized to the actual box, and labels your team can read from the aisle. Rotation that depends on people reaching to the back of a deep shelf will not survive a busy week.
How much stock should sit inside the procedure room itself?
A short, agreed list — the items reached for mid-case — on shallow wall-mounted positions or a compact cart, replenished from the main room on a schedule. Everything else belongs in the main supply room where it can be counted once. In-room stock that grows unmanaged is the usual source of duplicate inventory in multi-room suites.
Can you plan storage for a hybrid OR or a suite that shares stock with radiology?
Yes. Shared-stock suites need one main store, satellite positions per room and an explicit list of what lives where — otherwise each room quietly builds its own inventory. We map that with your interventional and imaging teams during the layout stage.
Can you install without shutting the suite down?
Yes, and it is the normal case. Work is phased bay by bay in low-volume windows, displaced stock moves to temporary shelving or carts, and each phase is left clean and usable before the next starts.
Do you advise on regulatory or accreditation requirements for device storage?
No. Those decisions belong to your facility and your reviewers, and we do not claim that a product satisfies them. We design to the separation, security, clearance and access criteria your team gives us, and we supply the manufacturer’s published material and finish information so your reviewers can make their own assessment.

Get a cath lab storage layout and quote

Send us the supply room dimensions, your device-family list and how stock moves today. You get a zoned layout, a parts list and a quote with freight, installation scope and lead times. The layout work is free whether you order from us or not.