Healthcare workers across America are overworked and overrun with more patients than they can handle. Depending on the country, a nurse could have upwards of eleven patients per day. Making it hard for them to care for each patient the best way they can.
One way of reducing their workload is by updating the technology they use on a day-to-day basis. Pneumatic tube systems could help enhance efficiency throughout the hospital. The tubes work like a subway system but faster, delivering patient documents 700% quicker than the average human walker could. Employees would swipe their badge to access the station’s interface and determine the fastest route, track the tube in real time with RFID technology and monitor when it is delivered, making the process of delivering documents swift and stress free for the workers. Blood products take twenty-five minutes longer without a tube system, and in Germany alone over 10,000 red blood units are transported in hospitals daily.
Pneumatic tube systems and other technical updates could also help reduce the spread of bacteria. Over 80% of illnesses can be transmitted through human hands. High-touch hospital surfaces harbor 18 human pathogens, 60 different kinds of bacteria. Bacteria such as Enterococcus, Streptococcus, Escherichia coli and Klebsiella aerogenes.
Updating infrastructure and processes could unlock the Pneumatic tube system to modern hospitals world wide, giving nurses a better and faster way to achieve their daily tasks, and lessening their workload.
Source: Swisslog