Throughout the nation, medical laboratories perform many types of important work. Whether it’s performing tests or treating patients, it takes a lot of money to run a medical facility. Considering that, you might be wondering where your laboratory’s profits are going. To solve this problem, it’s important to learn about common sources of excess waste in medical laboratories. Learning how to fix these problems will help ensure you avoid wasteful spending. Here are three ways to reduce waste in your medical laboratory.

• Keep Vaccines at Proper Temperatures
  
  Large scale production of vaccines first took place during the late 1940s. Since this time, medical facilities have continued to depend on vaccines to keep patients healthy. Research shows that vaccines prevent over 2.5 million avoidable deaths each year. However, it’s impossible to achieve this goal if your lab refrigerators aren’t at the proper temperature. The U.S Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommend storing frozen vaccines between -58 to 5 degrees Fahrenheit. To keep refrigerated vaccines safe, set your vaccine refrigerators at 40 degrees Fahrenheit.
• Let Technology Help You Make Purchasing Decisions
  
  Medical labs must purchase medications for their patients. If you’re not keeping a close eye on these purchases, you might be wasting lots of money. To remedy this situation, consider implementing an inventory management system. This type of software is great for tracking inventory, ensuring you avoid making expensive purchasing mistakes.
• Implement Continual Waste Management Training
  
  Almost every new employee needs to receive some type of training. However, this shouldn’t be where training ends for your employees. If wasteful behaviors are costing your lab money, it’s time to find out what’s going wrong. You can solve this problem by finding out what’s causing waste to take place. Consider training your employees how to perform their jobs without causing as much waste.

In closing, it’s important to reduce waste in your medical lab. Most types of medical equipment wear down as time passes including lab refrigerators. Unfortunately, old medical refrigerators and freezers can increase the amount of lab waste you’re dealing with. Considering that, it might be time to consider replacing your laboratory refrigerators and freezers. Before purchasing new equipment, make sure you purchase medical grade refrigerators. This enables you to have an easier time managing the equipment of important medications. To solve this problem, purchase medical refrigerators and freezers from a reputable supplier.