How to Audit First Aid Kits Across a Fleet

Why this matters

A van kit is stocked correctly exactly once: the day it is set up. After that it is opened for a splinter, raided for tape, left in a hot cab all summer, and its eyewash quietly passes its date. None of that shows from the outside. The audit is the only thing that turns "every van has a kit" into "every van has a kit that works," and run well it also surfaces something nobody expected: injuries that were treated and never reported.

This card is the monthly procedure for a fleet, built around one artifact, the kit audit card. What belongs in the kit is its own card (see related: The First Aid Kit for a Service Van).

Before the first audit: two things that make every audit after it fast

Write the kit standard per van type. One list per configuration, using the ANSI/ISEA Z308.1 kit classes (for example "Class B, Type III, HVAC" and "Class B, Type III, pool"), naming each item, the minimum quantity, and where it lives (in the kit, in the door pouch). The audit counts against this list, not against the label on the box. Skip it, and each auditor checks against their own idea of a full kit, so one passes a van another would fail.

Set one owner, one date and a backup. The first working day of each month, with a named person and a named backup for when they are out. A monthly check that belongs to "whoever has time" happens in January and then in June. Give it a realistic slot: about five minutes for a van whose seal is intact and about fifteen for one that needs a full count.

The audit card

Every van gets one card per audit. Paper in a binder or a form in the shop's system both work; what matters is that each line has the same columns every month, so a trend can be read.

FIRST AID KIT AUDIT    Van 14   Std: B-III-HVAC
Date 10/01/26   Auditor R. Ortiz   Backup J. Kim
Seal on arrival # 0412: intact / BROKEN
New seal applied # 0461

ITEM                   STD  FOUND  ADDED  EARLIEST EXP
Tourniquet, kit          1      1      0   n/a
Tourniquet, door pouch   1      1      0   n/a
Trauma dressing          6      3      3   none
Eyewash bottle           2      2      2   10/26 PULL
Burn gel dressing        2      2      0   04/27
Gloves, pairs M          4      1      3   none
Gloves, pairs XL         4      4      0   none
CPR pocket mask          1      1      0   n/a

Condition: heat / wet / crushed / ok   -> ok
Used since last audit: trauma x3, gloves M x3
Injury report on file for that use?  NO -> owner
Next audit due 11/02/26   Earliest exp now 04/27

The card is the procedure. Each step below fills one part of it.

The steps

1. Read the seal before you open anything. Each kit is closed with a numbered tamper seal after every audit, and the number goes on the card. An intact seal with the same number as last month means nobody has opened the kit, so the count can be skipped and only the dates and condition checked. A broken seal means a full count. Without seals, every van gets a full count every month, which is what turns a one-hour job into an afternoon and gets the audit skipped. The seal is not proof the kit is complete, only that it has not been opened; the date check still runs.

2. Count against the standard, line by line. Write the standard quantity, what you found, and what you added. Do not write "OK" for a line; write the number. A column of numbers can be totaled across the fleet next month, and "OK" cannot. Check the items that live outside the kit too, the door-pouch tourniquet especially, since that is the one most likely to be borrowed.

3. Find the earliest expiration date in the kit, and pull anything that expires before the next audit. Eyewash, burn gel, antiseptic and antibiotic applications, and any single-dose medication carry dates. The rule is pull-ahead: anything that will expire before the next scheduled audit comes out now, because waiting until it is past its date means it sits expired in the van for up to a month. On the example card the eyewash is dated October 2026, which lapses before the 11/02 audit, so both bottles were replaced on 10/01. Write the earliest remaining date on the card so the next auditor knows what to look for.

4. Check condition, not just presence. Things a count does not catch: gloves that crack when stretched (nitrile goes brittle in a hot cab), eyewash that has gone cloudy, adhesive dressings that will not stick, burn gel packets that are swollen or leaking, a tourniquet with a frayed strap or a cracked windlass, anything wet. Replace what fails. If a whole van's contents fail together, that is a placement problem, not a supply problem; move the kit out of the heat.

5. Restock on the spot from central stock. The auditor carries the restock, so the van leaves the audit complete. Keep central stock on a shelf with a minimum and a reorder point for each item; when the shelf hits the reorder point, someone orders. An audit that writes "short 3 trauma dressings" and leaves the van short has produced a record of a problem, not a fix.

6. Reconcile what was used against the injury reports. This is the step most shops skip and the one that earns the audit its time. For every item used since last month, ask: is there a report that explains it? Three trauma dressings and three pairs of gloves gone from Van 14 with nothing on file is not a stocking question. Somebody bled. The owner, not the auditor, follows up, and asks rather than accuses, since the reason is usually that the tech thought it was too small to bother with. The answer either produces a late report (see related: Accident and Incident Reporting SOP) or a sensible explanation (a customer's child, a dog). Unreported use that keeps recurring on one crew tells you that crew believes reporting gets them in trouble, which is a bigger problem than a short kit.

7. Seal it and write the new number. A fresh seal, its number on the card, and the next audit date. The seal is what lets next month's step 1 be a five-minute check.

8. Roll the cards up into one line per van. At the end of the round, one summary: vans audited, seals broken, vans short, items pulled for date, unreported use. That is what the owner reads, and the trend across months is where a pattern shows.

Worked example: one round, seven vans

A shop's auditor runs the October round on seven vans.

Seals. Vans 11 and 16 have intact seals matching September's numbers; the other five are broken. Time spent: 2 vans at about 5 minutes plus 5 vans at about 15 minutes, 10 + 75 = 85 minutes, plus restocking.

Counts. Of the five broken-seal vans, four are short of something and one, Van 12, is complete (the tech had opened it to check a date, and said so). The four shortages: Van 14 (3 trauma dressings, 3 pairs of medium gloves), Van 9 (the door-pouch tourniquet missing), Van 13 (tape and scissors gone), Van 17 (2 adhesive bandage strips, 1 cold pack).

Dates. Three vans, including the two with intact seals, had eyewash bottles from the same purchase batch dated October. Under the pull-ahead rule all three are replaced now. This is why the date check runs even on a sealed kit: Vans 11 and 16 passed the count without being opened and still had an item about to lapse.

Condition. Van 13's gloves failed the stretch test; its kit rides on the dash. The auditor replaces the gloves and flags the placement.

Reconciliation. Two vans show use: Van 14 and Van 17. Van 17's bandages and cold pack match a filed report of a bumped wrist. Van 14 has no report. The owner calls the tech, who says he opened his forearm on a supply plenum edge two weeks earlier, wrapped it, finished the job and forgot. A late report gets filed, and the owner asks him to have the cut looked at, since a wound that is red or warm two weeks on needs a clinician (see related: How to Treat a Sheet Metal Cut on the Job). Van 9's missing tourniquet turns out to be holding a ladder to the rack; it goes back in the pouch and the crew gets a ladder strap.

The summary line for October: 7 audited, 5 seals broken, 4 short, 3 pulled for date, 1 unreported use. Each of those counts traces back to a van named above: 5 broken (9, 12, 13, 14, 17), 4 short (9, 13, 14, 17), 3 pulled for date (11, 16 and one broken-seal van), 1 unreported (14).

What changes the round. A fleet of thirty vans cannot be audited by one person in a morning. Split it by depot or by crew lead, keep the same card and the same standard, and have one person roll up the summaries; the card is what keeps three auditors consistent. A shop whose vans are rarely at the yard together can audit at the morning dispatch, a few vans a day across the first week.

How you know the audit is working

Three numbers, read across months, tell you more than any single round:

• Expired items found in a kit should be zero. One found means the pull-ahead rule was skipped.
• Unreported use should fall after the first few months, as crews learn the question will be asked and that reporting a small cut gets them a dressing, not a lecture.
• The same van short of the same item every month means the item is being used for something else (tape and scissors, usually). Give the crew their own supply of the thing they keep borrowing.

Keep the cards for at least as long as the shop keeps its injury records, since a kit that was short on the day of a serious injury is a question someone may ask later.

References

• ANSI/ISEA Z308.1-2021, Minimum Requirements for Workplace First Aid Kits and Supplies
• See related: The First Aid Kit for a Service Van; What OSHA Requires for First Aid at a Small Shop
• See related: Accident and Incident Reporting SOP; How to Treat a Sheet Metal Cut on the Job