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Pneumatic Tube Systems In Hospitals

The benefits of pneumatic tube systems in hospitals extend far beyond the end users and are realized in delivering optimal patient care. Medical facilities need operation technology more than ever and the tube system is the solution to solve this problem. Invented in the early 19th century, the pneumatic tube system is now a vital component of patient care - advanced technology makes them faster than ever. As an example of how important the tube system could help, we bring up the pressures hospitals faced during the recent pandemic.

At its peak, demand for COVID testing in hospitals caused delays in testing at hospitals caused delays in testing for other respiratory diseases, STIs, and healthcare-associated infections. Up to 40% of ER patients were primarily there for COVID testing. Furthermore, there were supply shortages when it came to proper medical equipment. In 2021, it has been reported that 99% of US hospitals and health systems reported procurement challenges and nearly 80% of physicians reported shortages of drugs needed by all patients, not just those with COVID-19. Specific items that have seen shortages are lab supplies like pipettes, sterile water, and reagents.

Because of these shortages, accurate testing and dispensing had been severely impacted. In the past few years, speed became more essential when transporting labs, pharmaceuticals, and supplies. As a result, 16% of hospital pharmaceutical inventory is wasted because certain materials couldn’t be properly stored and thus had to be discarded as soon as they were used. This is where the pneumatic tubes come in, these tubes transport materials faster than usual methods clocking in at 25 feet per second from one location to another.

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SwissLog Healthcare goes into further detail about how pneumatic tube systems work in their intensive studies. So they use a carrier to move the items like a subway using compressed air as the vehicle for movement. The tubes have two lanes, one for air to pass through and the other for the carrier to be moved. Sensors ensure that each carrier reaches its intended destination. To control the flow of traffic, individual carriers have “change lines” to reach any station by using automated transfer units to redirect. Moreover, items that require a faster transport time will use an “Xpress” line that uses a vacuum to move the carrier faster than the regular carriers.

In 2010, Stanford Hospital implemented the pneumatic tube system to test its effectiveness. In their Children’s hospital alone they transmitted about 7000 carriers daily via the tube system. Stanford stated that to build those carriers, it took: 124 stations, 141 transfer units, 99 inter-zone connectors, over 36 different alert chimes, and 29 blowers. After using this system, Stanford mentioned that they were very pleased with how fast and efficient moving materials can be. Even during a heavy traffic situation, a carrier can travel the longest distance in less than 3 minutes. Another notable feature of the tube system is that it can connect to every floor, nurse station, and operating room to critical centralized services. It can even travel across separate buildings.

Pneumatic tube systems significantly reduce the turnaround time for emergency testing, helping to reduce time to treatment and patient wait times in the ER. SwissLog reported that in one hospital, over four weeks, a floor with the tube system experienced zero medication errors. As opposed to a floor without a tube system which garners the average amount of 16 medical errors within that same four-week period. Also, real-time tracking ensures that each order goes to the correct station every time. On the financial side, tube systems reduce operating costs and help staffing shortages while still improving the quality of care. This is because there will be no need for human couriers to transport.

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