Air tube systems in hospitals have been around for a long time and originally were mostly used for sending documents around the campus. As modern hospitals developed diagnostics through computerised technology, the transportation of samples added to the usefulness of pneumatic tube transportation around the hospital site to centralised laboratories. In today’s busy world thousands of hours of medical staff walking to deliver samples are saved every day using the Aerocom AC3000 pneumatic tube system, designed for hospitals.
Since the 1990’s virtually every new build hospital project incorporated a pneumatic tube system into the building which quickly gained huge popularity with the medical staff. Early Airtube systems were designed more for documents and a steady but relatively calm traffic flow, most of these systems used a single zone to connect the wards and departments. As the rate of usage increased with samples being sent using hospital pneumatic tube routes, the demand became apparent for more infrastructure. With the rapid development of the computer new multiple zone systems were introduced to allow several wards or departments to send simultaneously, and just like our national motorway networks allowed more lanes to ease traffic flow bottlenecks at peak periods.
The aerocom AC3000 system was the multiple zone hospital specific pneumatic tube system which took the UK market by storm in the mid 90’s, with computerised tracking in real time, graphic displays showing the traffic flowing through each zone, and user-friendly diagnostics using Microsoft windows operating systems.
Over 30% of UK hospital air tube systems are now Aerocom AC3000 models, and rather than develop new systems which are incompatible with the predecessor, AC3000 remains upgradable from the earliest versions to the latest system developments, allowing old and new technology to integrate. Many of our original systems in existing hospitals have expanded over the last 20 years, original equipment having reached its end of lifecycle mixed with newer technology which still has asset value.
With AC3000 we can replace only what is necessary and upgrade our systems, as and when required, and only exchange the equipment which needs to be replaced. We still install the latest version of AC3000 to this day with all the latest modern systems enhancements specifically designed for hospitals. Just about every month another UK hospital replaces an old dilapidated or unusable air tube system for an AC3000, the major reason for change is no availability of spares or the original supplier cannot upgrade.
With AC3000 the future is guaranteed.