PPE Warehousing – A Solution for Health Care Facilities

When the COVID-19 pandemic hit in early 2020, health care facilities and professionals were facing new and unique challenges that they had never before encountered. The global health crisis quickly brought to light many issues that impacted patient care and outcomes. One challenge was a shortage of personal protective equipment, better known as PPE. This included NIOSH-certified, disposable N95 or better face masks, eye/face protection (goggles, face shield), gloves, gowns, etc.

The pandemic meant health care professionals would need additional PPE and the PPE would need to be sterilized and/or discarded after caring for each patient. At the start of the pandemic, the U.S. federal government’s Strategic National Stockpile included 12 million N95 masks and 30 million surgical masks. That’s about 1% of the 3.5 billion needed by the U.S. and its citizens throughout 2020. For reference, as of September 1, 2020, the U.S. federal government had provided roughly 92.4 million N95 respirators, 28.1 million non-surgical gowns, 79.7 million gloves, 228.4 million face masks, as well as other PPE to state, tribal and territorial entities, according to the U.S. Government Accountability Office.

To say the least, demand for PPE became extremely high and most of the materials were made outside of the U.S., making availability scarce. The PPE shortage caused health care facilities to reevaluate their supplies, which led to them now being required to have an abundance of PPE on hand for such a crisis.

Now, with much higher volumes of PPE on hand, the question for health care facilities became, “Where do we store this?”

Armstrong provides PPE warehousing and management

When health care facilities need a partner with a solution for their surplus of PPE, they turned to Armstrong. Armstrong is able to receive product, store large quantities in its over 2.9 sq. ft. of nationwide warehouse space, manage the inventory, and distribute it to facilities, as needed. Armstrong is also able to provide climate-controlled warehousing for products that require it.

With the help of Armstrong, PPE warehousing allows health care facilities to have a more streamlined and centralized supply chain operation to prompt an efficient delivery of PPE and supplies to patient care locations. Additionally, PPE warehousing allows these facilities to maintain higher inventory levels of needed supplies, equipment and PPE, which can ultimately help to lower costs and mitigate supply chain issues that arise during the pandemic.

Your PPE supplies are valuable and that is why your warehousing partner should offer a fully integrated and strategic approach to meet your needs. With Armstrong as your partner, you can stay in touch with the status of your inventory no matter where you are, keeping you informed 100% of the time. Through our proprietary inventory management system, Armstrong is able to offer clients online web access, digital imaging and order tracking services. We are able to track assets by barcode scanning to the asset’s exact location in the warehouse. Our software also allows pictures to be uploaded, documents to be attached and information to be populated in Microsoft Excel.

Not just a moving company, Armstrong provides an array of services catering to the healthcare industry including PPE warehousing and healthcare transitions. Additional services include:

• Med surge product verification
• Move and project management
• Inventory management and control
• Order tracking
• Laboratory relocation
• IT disconnect and reconnect
• File and record storage
• Asset inventory and security
• Consolidation
• Receiving and storage
• Furniture configuration
• Debris removal
• Asset liquidation and decommissioning
• Installation

Rather than use crucial time and personnel to manage your PPE supplies and healthcare transition services, let the professionals do it for you. Contact us today to see how we can provide the best  solution for you.