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Apr. 13th, 2011 03:44 pmFor the second year, the fine folks at Atlas Obscura, ("a compendium of the world's wonders, curiosities, and esoterica") put on Obscura Day, April 9, 2011. It's a day to visit strange and interesting places all over the world. I was thrilled to snag tickets for a tour of the pneumatic tube system at Stanford Hospital:
"Join Stanford University Hospital chief engineer Leander Robinson on a tour of one of the largest pneumatic tube networks in the world.
Writes Sara Wykes:
Every day, 7,000 times a day, Stanford Hospital staff turn to pneumatic tubes, cutting-edge technology in the 19th century, for a transport network that the Internet and all the latest Silicon Valley wizardry can’t match: A tubular system to transport a lab sample across the medical center in the blink of an eye.
Join Stanford University Hospital chief engineer Leander Robinson on a tour of one of the largest pneumatic tube networks in the world. Snaking through the medical center's walls are four miles of tubes that shuttle specimens and paperwork around the facility at 18 miles per hour. Robinson will explain how this incredible system works."
It was great! Leander clearly enjoys explaining things and telling stories. The tubes are used for sending paper, lab specimens, prescriptions, drugs, transfusion blood, etc. Everything travels through the tubes in hard plastic containers about the size of a liter soda bottle. Unlike the systems at Home Depot, the tubes run both ways: a nurse sends an Rx to the pharmacy; the pharmacy sends the drug back to the ward. The system was installed in 1991 and they're planning to enlarge it when the hospital adds more buildings in the next few years. It's both mechanical and computerized. There are solenoids all through the system that make the capsules go to the right place. Only really large hospitals have such systems, but they're cheaper and faster than couriers.
We got to go in the control office for the system (huge screen where they can monitor
and track every delivery) and the machine rooms with blowers that power everything, and switching equipment that routes containers to different areas. We heard some stories about problems, too. Specimen jars used to have snap tops; now they have screw tops to prevent leaks. They go into large zipped plastic pouches that roll up and secure with Velcro. If something does leak, they can isolate that part of the system and send through a capsule filled with bleach, with holes in it. It spins and washes the tubes down. They have to do this several times then dry out the tubes.
Someone once sent a bundle of socks into the tubes. It came apart, the socks got all over the system, and there was lint onto the solenoids that control things. People send sandwiches and soda cans through with results you can imagine. As Leander put it, "Think about it, people. We send stool specimens through the system. You want to eat something that's been in there?"
When I reported on this on the Well, someone who works at a newspaper told of a macabre but excellent prank he and some friends pulled: they put a headless dead pigeon they'd found on the sidewalk into the system, with a note that said "Head TK".
I took a million pictures and posted them on Flickr.
Here's a video about it:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=U9EnDKUIVe0
"Join Stanford University Hospital chief engineer Leander Robinson on a tour of one of the largest pneumatic tube networks in the world.
Writes Sara Wykes:
Every day, 7,000 times a day, Stanford Hospital staff turn to pneumatic tubes, cutting-edge technology in the 19th century, for a transport network that the Internet and all the latest Silicon Valley wizardry can’t match: A tubular system to transport a lab sample across the medical center in the blink of an eye.
Join Stanford University Hospital chief engineer Leander Robinson on a tour of one of the largest pneumatic tube networks in the world. Snaking through the medical center's walls are four miles of tubes that shuttle specimens and paperwork around the facility at 18 miles per hour. Robinson will explain how this incredible system works."
It was great! Leander clearly enjoys explaining things and telling stories. The tubes are used for sending paper, lab specimens, prescriptions, drugs, transfusion blood, etc. Everything travels through the tubes in hard plastic containers about the size of a liter soda bottle. Unlike the systems at Home Depot, the tubes run both ways: a nurse sends an Rx to the pharmacy; the pharmacy sends the drug back to the ward. The system was installed in 1991 and they're planning to enlarge it when the hospital adds more buildings in the next few years. It's both mechanical and computerized. There are solenoids all through the system that make the capsules go to the right place. Only really large hospitals have such systems, but they're cheaper and faster than couriers.
We got to go in the control office for the system (huge screen where they can monitor
and track every delivery) and the machine rooms with blowers that power everything, and switching equipment that routes containers to different areas. We heard some stories about problems, too. Specimen jars used to have snap tops; now they have screw tops to prevent leaks. They go into large zipped plastic pouches that roll up and secure with Velcro. If something does leak, they can isolate that part of the system and send through a capsule filled with bleach, with holes in it. It spins and washes the tubes down. They have to do this several times then dry out the tubes.
Someone once sent a bundle of socks into the tubes. It came apart, the socks got all over the system, and there was lint onto the solenoids that control things. People send sandwiches and soda cans through with results you can imagine. As Leander put it, "Think about it, people. We send stool specimens through the system. You want to eat something that's been in there?"
When I reported on this on the Well, someone who works at a newspaper told of a macabre but excellent prank he and some friends pulled: they put a headless dead pigeon they'd found on the sidewalk into the system, with a note that said "Head TK".
I took a million pictures and posted them on Flickr.
Here's a video about it:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=U9EnDKUIVe0
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Date: 2011-04-13 11:31 pm (UTC)Damn, I'm choking I'm laughing so hard.
Putting a video camera inside the carrier was genius!
Do they fabricate all the pieces of the system on-site? Or is there one manufacturer who supplies all the drive-up banks, pharmacies, and newspapers?
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Date: 2011-04-14 03:01 pm (UTC)The hardware and software come from a vendor, Swisslog. From their web page it looks like they supply mainly hospitals.
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Date: 2011-04-14 03:11 pm (UTC)http://www.swisslog.com/index.html
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Date: 2011-04-14 08:38 pm (UTC)Jon Carroll seems to be a Platonic instance of a kindly columnist -- pls tell me there's evil skeletons lurking in his locker.
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Date: 2011-04-15 12:35 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-10-19 06:29 am (UTC)but i'd never seen the control center, just the tube stations on the floors and in the tcu.
i hadn't thought of it in years, and now i can picture it.
stanford's tube stations look MUCH fancier, though.
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Date: 2011-10-19 03:54 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-10-19 08:35 pm (UTC)the tubes (that you put things in to send it thru the tube system) were quite solid and fairly heavy and moved at a high rate of speed. i'd reached in to grab one just as a second one was coming in, and it knocked the tube i was grabbing for hard and fast enough as i was holding it to wrench my hand downwards sharply at the wrist. i was very, very careful to listen for the noise that meant another one was coming before grabbing after that and to grab them out FAST *g*
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Date: 2011-10-19 08:43 pm (UTC)