Last fall my father-in-law had a ruptured aorta and had to
be taken to Albany Medical Center for surgery. This was obviously a very tough
time for the family. I am very happy to say that after many long hours of
surgery he was patched up almost good as new, but he was kept in intensive care
under a medical induced coma for two days to let his injuries heal. After he
awoke he was kept at the hospital for several days of observation.
While we were there, we had to walk all over that building,
first to the emergency room entrance, then to the surgery waiting room on the
other side of the campus and the critical care unit on the fifth floor and
finally the normal hospital rooms. Even though we were constantly moving from
wing to wing the mapping system employed there made the transitions easier to
manage and the whole ordeal a little less stressful.
Albany Medical is like most hospitals I’ve been to, addition
onto addition onto addition, which provides for constant grade changes and long
hallways which seem to lead forever. Without their mapping system, finding our
way through the maze of hallways would have been a nightmare. The mapping
system consists of different color buildings, essentially different colors for
each successive addition. Each hallway in the building had colored lines coordinated
with the different areas of the building. To reach a certain area all one had
to do was to follow the colored lines painted on the walls, reminded me of the
yellow brick road at one point. At each intersection and each door there were
signs perpendicular to the hallway so that you can immediately spot your
intended destination. This allowed us to easily locate the, on premises, Dunkin
Donuts for that initial long sleepless night.
