How to run a medical equipment loan closet

A loan closet usually starts with a garage full of donated walkers and a phone number. Someone comes home from surgery and needs a shower chair for six weeks; someone else's father needs a wheelchair while he recovers. The closet lends it, free or for a small donation, and it comes back for the next family.

The hard part is not lending. It is knowing what you have, making sure it is clean and safe, and getting it back. A loan that nobody follows up is the easiest way for a closet to lose a wheelchair, and a closet that runs out of wheelchairs stops being able to help.

This guide is for the volunteers and coordinators who run one. It covers what to stock, how to take in donations, cleaning between loans, what to record, and how to get equipment back. It is not medical or legal advice: borrowers should get fitting and usage advice from their clinician, and your organization should take its own advice on waivers and liability.

What a loan closet lends

Most closets focus on durable, reusable items that are expensive to buy for a short need:

• Mobility: wheelchairs, transport chairs, walkers, rollators, canes, crutches, knee scooters.
• Bathroom safety: shower chairs, transfer benches, raised toilet seats, commodes, grab bars that do not need installing.
• Bedroom: hospital beds, overbed tables, bed rails where you can inspect them properly.
• Other: lift chairs, patient lifts, and sometimes baby equipment or adaptive sports gear.

Decide early what you will not accept. Many closets decline items that are hard to clean or inspect, anything that needs specialist fitting or servicing, powered equipment they cannot test, single-use supplies, and anything under an active recall.

Intake: taking in a donated item

Every donation should pass the same steps before it can be lent:

1. Inspect. Check frames, brakes, wheels, tips, fabric and fasteners. Anything cracked, bent, missing parts or with worn brakes is not lent.
2. Check for recalls. Look up the manufacturer and model. The FDA lists the most serious medical device recalls on its recalls and early alerts page. If an item has been recalled, follow the recall's instructions instead of lending it.
3. Clean (see below).
4. Tag. Give it a numbered label that will survive cleaning, such as a laminated or vinyl tag with a barcode or QR code. Our asset tags guide covers materials and placement.
5. Record it. Type, make, model, size or weight limit, the tag number, where it came from, the date received, and its condition.

Then it goes onto the shelf as available.

Cleaning between loans

Most loan closet equipment touches intact skin only. The CDC's infection-control guidance calls these noncritical items — its examples include crutches, bed rails, bedpans and patient furniture — and says they need low-level disinfection, for which "most Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)-registered disinfectants" used according to their label are appropriate.

In practice:

• clean off visible dirt first, then disinfect with an EPA-registered product, following the label's contact time;
• pay attention to handles, grips, seats and armrests;
• let items dry fully before storage;
• keep "returned, not yet cleaned" items physically separate from clean stock, with a clear label;
• record the date each item was cleaned, and who cleaned it.

Items with fabric or foam that cannot be disinfected, or that were used by someone with a known infection your cleaning cannot handle, may need to be retired rather than lent again.

What to record on every loan

A loan record protects the borrower, the next borrower and the closet. Keep it short and avoid collecting health information you do not need.

Ask how long the item is likely to be needed and set a return date from that — six weeks for surgery recovery, for example. If the need turns out to be permanent, extend the loan or help the borrower find a permanent option, and record what was agreed.

Getting equipment back

Most borrowers intend to return equipment; they just forget, or a family member does not know it was borrowed. A routine brings most of it back:

• Before the due date, call or text to ask whether the item is still needed.
• On the due date, agree a return or an extension, and record the new date.
• For long overdue loans, contact the alternate contact if you have one.
• Make returning easy: regular drop-off hours, a clear address, and a note on the item itself with your phone number and "please return when finished."
• Accept that some items will not come back. Record them as lost so your stock count stays true.

Knowing what you have

Once a year, or when volunteers change, count everything: every item on the shelf, every item on loan, every item waiting to be cleaned or repaired. Anything you cannot find is either on an unrecorded loan or gone. The free inventory count sheet turns your item list into printable count sheets, one section per location.

Your records also answer the questions donors, grant funders and your board will ask: how many loans you made this year, what you lend most, what you are short of, and how much equipment you kept out of landfill.

Spreadsheet or software?

A notebook or spreadsheet works for a few dozen items and one coordinator. It gets harder when several volunteers lend items, when you need to know an item's history — who had it, when it was cleaned, what was repaired — or when overdue loans are only found by someone remembering to look. At that point, a record per item that every volunteer can open, from the item's tag, starts to pay for itself. Equipment checkout software covers the options.

How AssetCenter fits

AssetCenter can run a loan closet's records. Each item is an asset with its own tag and timeline; borrowers are recorded as people, marked as external to your organization; and a loan is an assignment with a Return Date, which shows as Due Back on the item until Person Loan Returned closes it. You can create your own events, such as Cleaned or Inspected, and log them on the item's timeline with the date and volunteer, along with condition changes and photos. Volunteers can scan an item's tag with a phone to open its record. See AssetCenter for nonprofits.

AssetCenter does not send reminders to borrowers, and it is not a clinical system. To follow up loans, add a to-do on the item for its return date; the To-dos page lists every to-do by due date and shows overdue ones in red. The permanent Free account covers up to 25 items, which is enough to try it on part of your stock.

Frequently asked questions

Do loan closets charge for equipment?

Many lend for free or ask for an optional donation. Some take a refundable deposit on expensive items like hospital beds. Whatever you choose, apply it consistently and write it into your loan terms.

How long can someone borrow equipment?

Set a standard period, often a few weeks to three months, and extend it when the need continues. Every loan should still have a return date so it can be followed up.

Should a loan closet accept used hospital beds?

Only if you can inspect, clean and safely transport and assemble them, and they are not subject to a recall. Many closets accept manual beds but decline powered ones they cannot test.

Do we need a liability waiver?

Many closets use one, alongside advice that borrowers get fitting and usage guidance from their clinician. Ask your organization's insurer or legal advisor what your closet needs.

Next step: tag your stock and record the next loan

Tag every item you have now, record it with its condition, and use the loan fields above for the next loan, with a return date. If you lend laptops or other equipment too, the loaner laptop program guide covers the same custody routine for technology.

By Jeremy Francis

Founder & CEO, AssetCenter