From: "del cecchi" <dcecchi@msn.com>
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Re: One big box vs. many little boxes
Message-ID: <1re1b.114$OB5.2604@eagle.america.net>
Date: Thu, 21 Aug 2003 20:31:34 -0500

"Robert Myers" <rmyers@rustuck.com> wrote in message
news:10jakvcr1a0jj537ra8m0ptuhbkv6e1r8l@4ax.com...
> On Thu, 21 Aug 2003 15:30:51 -0400, "Bill Todd"
snip
>
> Hospitals have a very similar problem with regard to unwanted
> pathogens as do computers.  Were I in the hospital business, I'd be
> saying the same thing about hospitals.
>
> Right now, a hospital is a very bad place to be sick, because
> hospitals are where you are most likely to find exotic strains of
> drug-resistant bacteria.  I don't want to go look up the incidence,
> say, of post-operative wound infections, but it's a serious problem.
>
> Knowing that, when I visit a hospital, I can't believe what I see:
> hard to clean surfaces everywhere.  Stuff piled all over the place,
> sitting right out in the open.  Things that are destined to be
> transported all over the hospital on which pathogens could hitch a
> ride, say, right into intensive care or the post-op suite.  Even
> operating rooms, the last time I saw one, didn't look very smart.  I
> don't even want to think about what might be going on in the HVAC
> that's just dumb.
>
(snippage above)

This is a little off topic, but some years ago I heard a story that IBM
in E. Fishkill had a semiconductor clean room facility that they
couldn't get clean enough for some reason.  This was back in the days of
Class 100 type facilities making 2 micron bipolars.  So they ripped it
out and gave it to a local hospital for an operating room.  It was
dramatically cleaner than anything else in the hospital, and was used
for bone surgery, with great success.

When I had surgery recently, the doctor told me to get out of the
hospital as fast as I could.  And that was the Mayo Clinic.  :-)

del