Nursing Bag Technique: Step-by-Step Guide

A nursing bag, also known as a healthcare bag, public health bag, medical bag, visiting bag, or supply bag, is a critical part of at-home patient care and has been a staple of home visits for decades. Visiting medical staff, including nurses, aides, and rehabilitation experts, all carry their essentials in a nursing bag during home visits.

There are two important parts to any nursing bag technique: stocking it with the right items and keeping it clean to prevent the spread of microorganisms and infections as you move from visit to visit. Below, we walk through the essential items to keep on hand in your nursing bag, then break down the best technique for keeping it as germ-free as possible.

How to Stock Your Nursing Bag

You don't want to leave anything out of your nursing bag. Here are 12 essential items to keep on hand, plus tips for choosing the bag itself.

The Bag Itself: The first step to stocking your nursing bag is deciding what type of bag you need. Material matters here. Many bags have an exterior made of canvas or another tough cloth, but fabric, even treated fabric, can't be thoroughly sanitized just by wiping it down, since cloth is porous. Choose a bag with a hard, nonporous exterior, such as vinyl or leather, that can be disinfected with a quick wipe-down. For the interior, look for a mix of pocket sizes to hold everything below, and make sure the handles or straps are comfortable to grip or wear.

Stethoscope: Stethoscopes let you listen to the heart, lungs, bowels, and other body systems for signs of irregularity. They're some of the most important pieces of equipment for any medical professional and should be one of the first items you add to your bag. For an extra personal touch, consider an engraved stethoscope so everyone knows whose bag is whose.

Blood Pressure Cuff: Just like checking the heart and lungs with a stethoscope, a blood pressure cuff is a hallmark of any basic medical visit. Every nursing bag should have one, and you can personalize yours with embroidery or emblems if you'd like.

Thermometer: A thermometer might bring back memories of childhood fevers, but it's an essential tool for at-home visits with patients of all ages. Be sure to carefully dispose of any plastic covering and sanitize the unit after each use.

Nursing Scissors and Tape: Scissors can cut through medical gauze, dressings, bandages, and more, so having a pair on hand means you're ready for basic wound care. Keep medical tape close by too, since it's often used to hold an IV or bandage in place.

Single-Use Items: These are designed to be discarded after one use for sanitary reasons, and include alcohol prep pads, adhesive remover pads, disinfectant wipes, paper towels, adhesive bandages, and PPE like gowns, face masks, and face shields.

Sharps Container: Since it stores used needles and other contaminated items, the sharps container shouldn't go inside the bag itself. Keep it in an external pocket or carry it separately. It's a critical part of any home nurse's kit and shouldn't be left behind.

Tourniquet: You hope you'll never need one, but if you do, you'll want a tourniquet on hand and easily accessible so you can act quickly in an emergency.

Lotion and Hand Sanitizer: Nurses wash their hands many times a day, and lotion helps fight dryness and prevent cracking. Hand sanitizer helps you get rid of germs in a pinch between washes.

Hand Soap and Disinfectant: If you have room, bring hand soap and disinfectant so you can clean up both your bag and yourself as needed between visits. If your bag has a nonporous, hard exterior, a quick wipe-down is usually all it takes.

Gloves: If you find yourself handling or disposing of contaminated materials, disposable gloves protect your hands and cut down on cleanup afterward.

Medical Books: Whether physical or digital, it's always a good idea to keep reliable medical references on hand. Whether that's an app on your phone or a pocket-sized reference guide, keep your go-to resources within arm's reach.

Pens and Paper: Most nurses like to carry a writing instrument, whether that's pens, pencils, highlighters, a small notebook, or a nursing clipboard, so they can jot down patient observations without fumbling for a phone or laptop. Many nurses also carry a penlight for extra illumination and to assess pupil response.

How to Clean Your Nursing Bag

Now you know what to put in your nursing bag, but what's the proper way to clean everything, and how often should you do it? Proper bag technique is really about preventing contamination of the bag itself. Keeping it clean and storing it in a clean environment helps you stay compliant with regulations and reduces your chances of spreading bacteria.

How Often to Clean Your Nursing Bag

There are no nationally or internationally mandated guidelines for how often you must clean your nursing bag. Each hospice and home care organization sets its own regulations. At minimum, the bag should be cleaned once a month, and ideally disinfected once a week. If the bag is visibly soiled, clean it immediately regardless of your regular schedule.

You should also regularly clean the reusable items inside the bag, including your stethoscope, blood pressure cuff, thermometer, scissors, and other tools. Ideally, these should be disinfected after each patient and before going back in the bag. Some nurses clean them daily, after their last visit of the day, while others do it weekly. As with the bag itself, clean these items immediately if they're visibly soiled.

Some argue that home care nursing bags should have a "clean" side and a "dirty" side, where clean and soiled items go back in the bag separately. However, "dirty" items should never go back in the bag at all; they should be disposed of properly, which is why the sharps container stays in an exterior pocket or is carried separately. Keeping used items outside the bag limits the spread of germs and makes cleaning the bag and its contents easier overall.

Step-by-Step Nursing Bag Cleaning

Research on nursing bag hygiene backs up why this matters: a widely cited study of nursing bags from four home care agencies found that approximately 84% of bag exteriors and 48.4% of bag interiors tested positive for human pathogens (Bakunas-Kenneley & Madigan, 2009). Nursing bags clearly can carry infectious agents, so here's how to help stop them from spreading.

Note: Wash your hands thoroughly before starting this process, and wash them again as needed as you move through the steps to avoid contaminating surfaces you've already cleaned.

1. Choose Your Surface: Find a hard, nonporous surface you can disinfect, not wood. Once step two is done, you'll place your nursing bag and its contents here.
2. Clean the Area: Thoroughly clean the surface and let the disinfectant sit or dry for the full time recommended by the manufacturer. It defeats the purpose of cleaning your bag if you set everything back down on a contaminated surface.
3. Remove All Contents: Take everything out of your bag and set it on the disinfected surface. Turn the bag upside down and shake it to dislodge anything stuck in the bottom. This is a good time to check for expired items and clear out any trash hiding in the bottom.
4. Inspect the Bag: Check for soiling, cracks, rips, or other signs of wear. If you spot any, it might be time to look into a replacement so it doesn't fail on you during a visit.
5. Wipe Down the Interior: Put on a fresh pair of gloves to avoid transferring contaminants into the bag. Using a disinfectant wipe, clean the interior to remove dirt and kill germs, then let the disinfectant sit or dry for the recommended time.
6. Clean the Exterior: Wipe down the exterior by hand with a disinfectant wipe and let it dry for the specified time. If the bag's material allows, you can also machine wash it and air dry or tumble dry, but check the care tag first.
7. Clean the Contents: Wipe down any vital sign equipment and other reusable items with disinfectant and let them dry. Repeat this step for any electronic equipment used during visits, like a laptop or phone.
8. Wash Your Hands: Once you've finished disinfecting the bag and its contents, remove your gloves and thoroughly wash and dry your hands.
9. Restock Your Bag: Throw out anything past its expiration date, place remaining supplies back in the bag, and restock anything running low. Once the disinfectant is fully dry, return your vital sign equipment to the bag.

Why It Matters

Proper nursing bag cleaning technique is critical for making sure you don't carry contagious agents from home to home, potentially exposing patients, and yourself, to infection. Following these steps regularly, along with good judgment, helps keep your bag and its contents clean while cutting down on the spread of germs.

Of course, your nursing bag isn't valuable just for its cleanliness, but for what it holds. If you're building or restocking your own, check out our guide to nursing school essentials for more on what to carry as you head into clinicals. Whether it's your first home visit or your hundredth, you can feel confident your bag is disinfected correctly and stocked with everything you need.