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François Jerome, Tube System Maintenance Specialist, said the pneumatic tube system that runs throughout The Ottawa Hospital saves a lot of staff time.

Did you know that the General Campus of The Ottawa Hospital has the largest pneumatic tube system in Canada?

Some 7.68 kilometres of tubes wind their way behind the walls and between the floors, delivering specimens, prescriptions, lab results, paperwork and more.

With about 4,700 transactions daily, the system is a necessary tool that’s been used since 1980. It uses a vacuum and pressure to move items across each hospital campus, giving staff more time to do their work without having to walk those items to their destination.

“At one point, the system went down, and it took 10 full-time staff delivering samples everywhere to make up for it,” said François Jerome, Tube System Maintenance Specialist.

The General Campus has 81 entry-and-receiving stations, making it the largest in Canada, while the Civic has 59 stations and the Riverside has 19. Each trip through the tubes takes between one and three minutes.

All items sent through the tubes must be properly packed, and sometimes wrapped in foam if they’re delicate, to ensure they arrive safely. The clinical labs, including microbiology and blood transfusion, are the most frequent pneumatic tube users, making up 25 percent of daily transactions. The pharmacy is in second place, making up nine percent of transactions.

“We get lots of positive feedback. It’s amazing – when the system goes down, many times users will know before we do because they are so accustomed to the system’s high degree of reliability,” explained Jean Brunet, Manager of Mechanical Systems. “The system is highly efficient. The downtime is very low. It has a tremendous level of dependency. Only two to three spills occur every year, and there are well over 4,000 transactions daily.”

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