Questions About PTS
Explore how MGE determines where PTS can create measurable operational value—from the initial constraint through implementation, measurement and continuity.
01
Understand PTS
A Pneumatic Tube System (PTS) is distributed physical and digital infrastructure for controlled movement of designated materials across a healthcare institution. Its value goes beyond transport: when properly designed, it can provide traceability, routing, monitoring and operational visibility around material flow.
A carrier is sent from one station to another through a controlled tube network, but the real operating model extends beyond the transport itself. Network design, capacity, station locations, traffic, traceability, staff practices, maintenance and energy use all affect how reliably the system performs and how well it can scale with the institution’s future needs.
02
Assess the Opportunity
MGE starts with the operational constraint and the outcome the hospital needs to achieve—not with the decision to install a PTS. Through its ORBIT approach, MGE establishes the baseline, identifies where material movement is consuming time, capacity or resources, and determines whether PTS is the appropriate intervention to create measurable improvement.
PTS can be relevant in both operating hospitals and hospitals being designed or constructed when material movement creates a meaningful operational constraint. MGE assesses the actual configuration, flows, distances, department relationships, demand, future expansion and required outcomes rather than using bed count alone to determine suitability.
Read more → Healthcare Capacity & Care Delivery Intervention
MGE evaluates PTS against the institutional outcome it is intended to support, including capacity, workflow, safety, infection-control requirements, staff resource use, material integrity, reliability, maintainability, energy use and future expansion. The assessment should show how the proposed capability could improve productivity, turnaround, resource utilization, continuity and—where the relevant pathways support it—clinical outcomes such as faster diagnosis and treatment.
03
Identify Institutional Value
PTS can create value wherever material movement affects clinical or operational performance, including diagnostic, treatment, medication, emergency, surgical and support pathways. MGE examines where movement, waiting, handling and departmental handoffs consume time or capacity, then identifies where controlled flow could release that value.
Depending on the baseline, PTS can reduce avoidable movement and waiting, improve traceability and turnaround, release staff capacity, reduce operational friction and improve the use of existing infrastructure. Where material movement is a meaningful constraint, these improvements can contribute to greater effective capacity, including the potential to serve more patients or release bed capacity without relying immediately on physical expansion.
PTS value is determined over its lifecycle, not by acquisition cost alone. MGE considers architecture, capacity, installation, integration, maintenance, energy use, spare parts, durability, expandability, downtime and the operational value the system enables; GAHAR places pneumatic tube systems within hospital utility management requirements that include planned inspection, maintenance and performance monitoring.
04
Integrate into Operations
PTS implementation can change how materials are dispatched, received, tracked and escalated, as well as responsibilities, SOPs, maintenance and performance monitoring. MGE designs these operating changes as part of the intervention so that the system becomes part of the hospital’s way of working rather than an installation added to it.
MGE integrates PTS with the workflows that depend on timely and controlled material movement, making points such as collection, dispatch, receipt and administration more visible and measurable. The objective is to connect material flow with clinical and support operations so that departments work as part of one operating model rather than as separate movement points.
05
Measure the Outcome
MGE measures PTS against the outcomes identified during the assessment, which may include transport and waiting time, turnaround, availability, reliability, exceptions, staff time, capacity utilization, operating cost and relevant clinical or operational outcomes. The critical question is not how many carriers the system moves, but what becomes measurably better because the capability exists.
MGE assesses the existing capability before assuming replacement is the answer, including reliability, capacity, network condition, controls, maintenance history, integration, supportability, current and future demand and downtime risk. The resulting decision may be to maintain, strengthen, expand or redesign the capability for reliable future performance.
MGE connects the identified operational constraints to their capacity and financial implications rather than applying a universal ROI assumption. The MGE PTS Economic Value & ROI Tool can help the hospital explore potential changes in operating cost, staff utilization, length of stay, effective bed capacity, bed utilization, payback and institution-specific return before an investment decision is made.
06
Carry the Value Forward
MGE treats commissioning as the beginning of operational use, not the end of the intervention. Through ORBIT™, ownership, procedures, monitoring, engineering and maintenance capability, performance measures, troubleshooting and continuous improvement are transferred into the institution so it can continue to operate, measure and develop the value of the strengthened capability.