Pneumatic power from Unison Narula Group

Evolution of sample distribution system in hospitals by Sumetzberger (Austria)

Prashant Narula Director, Unison Narula Group

Hospitals are highly complex systems, which perform a great variety of tasks. All of these are urgent since the health of people is at stake. Sumetzberger’s hospital pneumatic tube system is the means of transport, which combines speed and reliability.

While doctors and nursing staff dedicate themselves to the patients, the pneumatic tube system transports a multitude of small and medium-sized items. This system saves not only time, but also space – laboratories can be centralised and stocks of the medicines in the decentralised medicine storage depots (like the nurse stations) can be reduced. Furthermore, the pneumatic tube system helps increase efficiency since the staff is no longer busy running errands, allowing the wards to stay occupied all the time.

Since a hospital is not a typical working place, its pneumatic tube system has to fulfill a series of high demands:

• In order to guarantee a safe transport of laboratory samples, the carrier speed may be modified. Low-speed transport is selected manually or automatically by choosing a certain dispatch or receiving station.
• The carriers can be adapted to hold different types of insert pockets or test tube holders.
• Arriving carriers brake carefully upon arrival and are sent directly into the tube without any shock.
• The system functions silently and is patient-friendly.
• Transport loads with restricted access can be secured by means of a code
• Thermo chemical sterilisation of the carriers to be carried out manually or automatically.
• The system is hermetically sealed.

Pneumatic tube systems do not necessarily have to be installed at the outset of construction. Even in an already operating hospital, a pneumatic tube system can be easily integrated. Depending on the various structural conditions, the system can be laid inside or outside the walls. Other factors, for instance system capacity, load size or weight, are taken into consideration as well.

Ing. Sumetzberger GmbH (Austria) is clearly the most advanced system with the following technologies available:

1. Automatic unloading stations: This facilitates the laboratory technicians to concentrate on their core activity and not be worried about the carrier management.
2. “Easy Touch” touch screen panel: Easy Touch is a 7 inch touch display with multifunctional operation screens. The touch panel can be operated with finger, safety gloves or styluses. It features – shortcut keys to sub-menus quick dial, multi information, RFID user identification reader, customised hotkeys, customised background colour to suit individual requirements.
3. Power transfer system (PWT): Sumetzberger’s PWT combines different zones for intra-zone transfers. With one of its kind in the industry, the PWT has the highest throughput and allows high priority samples to over take the normal priority samples.

Harshil Narula Director, Unison Narula Group

In over 50 years, Sumetzberger has done hundreds of unique systems and some of the partners in growth in the healthcare sector are: Tan Tock Seng Hospital (Singapore); Khoo Teck Puat Hospital (Singapore); Hospital San Raffaele, Milano (Italy); King Faisal Specialist Hospital & Research Center (Saudi Arabia); Sri Balaji Action Medical Institute, Action Cancer Hospital, Jai Prakash Narain Trauma Centre, New Delhi (India); BGS Global Hospital, Sagar Hospital, Bangalore (India); and CDKD Global Hospital, Mumbai (India).

Evolution of waste and linen removal in hospitals by Transvac – US

Many hospitals today, continue to use an antiquated and arcane system for the removal of waste, recyclables and linens – manual disposal, overflowing roller carts, waste bins gravity chutes, trash closets and dump trucks. These systems are highly inefficient, labour-intensive, environment non-friendly, and potentially unhealthy in terms of disease and infection control. In evaluating the current traditional logistics for removing waste and soiled linen, hospital team leaders are finding a number of problems including:

• Increased exposure time of infectious disease to patients, staff and the public during transport of trash and contaminated linens through hallways and elevators.
• Increased costs due to required labor for transporting waste and soiled linens.
• Environmental and cleanliness concerns.

However, with the development and deployment of automated waste and recycling management systems powered by air technology, we are at the dawn of a new age – The pneumatic age. These new systems are quickly becoming the waste, linen and recycling infrastructure system of choice in new and up-to-date facilities. They keep waste where it belongs — out of sight — and provide the hospital with significant improvements to operating efficiency, cost-savings, infection control, and sustainability.

Systems for automated removal of waste, soiled linen and recyclables are cleaner, greener, safer, hygienic, environment friendly, and more economical than these traditional systems. Automated systems transport the materials in a separate, air tight – closed pipe system from every department/floor to a single collection point, which can be located in a discrete location. The inlets are positioned optimally to keep manual handling to a minimum. The materials are then transported via a computer-controlled pneumatic system that moves the soiled linen, waste and recyclables quickly, safely — and out of sight. This results in a quiet, hygienic, environmentally friendly setting for staff and patients. These automated systems have other huge benefits also.

A study analysing exposure time of hazardous materials through hospitals compared the exposure of manual collection vs an automated pneumatic solution such as from TransVac. Exposure time by manually removing waste was 1,344 minutes compared with 132 minutes for an automated process in a 200-beded hospital.

Automated transportation of trash, linens and recycling minimises patient, staff and guest exposure time by nearly 90 per cent since transport time is limited due to automating and sealing the removal process.

Other quantifiable benefits of an automated system include:

• Reduction in hospital FTEs.
• Vital part of the “green building” technology.
• Increased management tools via secure log-ins for system access.
• Detailed management, reporting, and control over the working of the staff and required areas etc.

Leading hospitals such as the Rush Medical Center and the Mayo Clinic in US have discovered that this technology can greatly improve material transport performance and also lower operational costs, improve cleanliness and aesthetics while also limiting exposure to waste.

Since over 40 years, TransVac through its automated waste and recycling management provides an opportunity for hospitals to ensure sustainability, improve efficiency, and reduce costs. It is the dawn of the pneumatic age.

This system is also used in infrastructure projects, hotels, stadiums, airports, and all the areas with a large public footprint.

Sumetzberger and TransVac partner with Unison Narula Group (India) in the Sub-Continent.

For more details contact:
Unison Narula Group
Tel: (011) 45459999
Mob: 921277808/ 9212577818
Email: [email protected] / [email protected]