Elevators

Sometimes the infrastructure of the hospital frustrates me. The worst thing in my experience is the elevators. There are times of the day when I climb nine flights of stairs not for the exercise but because it's faster than waiting for the elevator. At the general hospital, I never take the elevators because they're too slow, but what's more ridiculous is the seven-story hospital only has one stairwell for everyday use (other exits are for emergencies only). I don't understand this. Decreasing elevator wait time will markedly improve services delivered. Patient transport is less harrowing, physicians are happier, and you don't have people accidentally talking about patient information in a hallway because they've already wasted five minutes waiting for an elevator. Even more importantly, code teams could get to emergencies faster; currently, code teams have a key to override an elevator's controls but I see them barreling up and down stairwells because they can't risk the elevators being too slow or not working.

Lost time to elevators happens to everyone: doctors, residents, medical students, nurses, techs, therapists, volunteers, patients and their families. How much time could we save by fixing this vertical challenge? I don't think it's an impossible task; indeed, hotels have figured it out. What would you think if you checked into a hotel and waited five minutes for an elevator to arrive which then stopped at every floor until your destination on 15? Why do we accept this as everyday life in the hospital?

Image of the elevators in 240 Sparks, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada shown under GNU Free Documentation License, from Wikipedia.