Pneumatic tube systems, which use air pressure or vacuums to move canisters around a building, are usually something we picture as a quant relic of the industrial age. They came into use in the 19th century, seeing eventual heavy use to transport letters and telegraphs. They were widely adopted in finance and banking. Factories and department stores got in on the act, too, using them to move cash or small parts and products.
Hospitals began using them in the 20th century for lab samples and paperwork. It’s remained a robust niche application. Technology has come a long way, but you still can’t send a sample vial by attaching it to an email. Thousands of hospital systems across the world still use them, often using a combination of big new build outs and overhauls of legacy systems that have sometimes been in service for decades.
This, of course, makes the job quite complex: pharmacies, labs, or clerical functions require access as the pressurized system can encompass scores of workstations/entry points across multiple levels of a building or even entire medical campuses.
Even in the digitized 21st Century, hospitals maintain and improve these systems because they still save a lot of resources when compared with the amount of people and foot steps it would take to get specimens and medication from place to place efficiently and safely.
Scott-Long has decades of experience working inside the complex and sensitive environments of healthcare facilities.