Jim Konopka, an engineer at Northwestern Memorial Hospital, took a CBS-2 News crew to an area underneath the hospital housing a carrier that travels through the four miles of tubes connecting the seven buildings of the system’s downtown campus.
“We will send 7,200 to 7,500 of these [carriers] a day. We can put 2 IV bags in here, up to five pounds. We drop out of here and drop to bottom pipes and feed to another building,” he said, adding that one of the system’s biggest uses is transporting blood. “This is how we get blood from point A to point B, wherever in the hospital. It’s just quicker, much quicker. No one has to physically pick up blood.”
Mr. Konopka said there are approximately 150 stations around the health system where employees can send and receive blood, medicine and paperwork. A computer system tracking each carrier ensures collisions never occur, according to the report.
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