The thought of antiquated 90’s technology holds few better examples than pneumatic tubes. Using compressed air to shoot a package from one part of a building to another just sounds a bit trivial at this point, but the reality is this could not be farther from the case. Today, pneumatic tubes are becoming one of the most important systems in the modern medical industry.
Hospitals today are constantly moving materials from place to place, drugs, samples, and equipment take thousands of man hours to get where they need to be. Pneumatic tubing essentially cuts all this out. While most information can be stored and transferred digitally, there are not many ways to move physical resources without having someone run it themselves.
Pneumatic tubes do exactly this, and they do it quicker, with less error, and with more tracking detail. A modern tubing system can transmit over 7,000 carriers daily, has tracking on its carriers, and reduced human hours. This is particularly important considering COVID brought on some of the biggest staffing and material shortages seen in the medical community to date.
So while it isn’t as glamorous or as advanced as a lot of the modern innovations that exist today. The raw utility and practicality of the pneumatic tube has only grown with time. Hospitals looking to the future aren’t just looking at more advanced digital systems and equipment, they’re looking at pneumatic tubes.
Source: Swisslog Healthcare
