The Inner Workings of Hospitals

Hospitals can be bewildering places. They operate according to their own special logic, which can make them feel a bit like a well-oiled machine — and a bit like organized chaos. As patients, we’re dropped in and pushed through a maze of activity, mostly clueless about the hidden gears that keep this life-saving machinery chugging along. On this episode of The Pulse, we step through the “staff only” doors to get a better sense of the inner workings of hospitals.

Also heard on this week’s episode:

• Talking with microbiologist Jonathan Eisen and healthcare epidemiologist Jennifer Han about healthcare-acquired infections — and the ways proper cleaning mitigates the risk they pose.
• Violence erupts at hospitals more frequently than it should. Now, a California law is requiring medical centers to develop prevention plans to protect workers.
• Ballinger architect Erin Nunes Cooper explains the challenges in designing hospitals — and why medical facilities can feel like a maze.
• Writer-comedian Mimi Hayes found short-term love at the hospital, while recovering from a brain hemorrhage — call it a meet-cute for the ages (or, ahem — “the aged”).
• Every hospital has an employee whose positive attitude makes everybody’s day better. At Nemours/Alfred I. duPont Hospital for Children in Wilmington, Delaware, that guy is George Benson.