The Dane Commission (The Dane Chronicles) by Max Dane Page B

green.
The green light went off, the red light came on. Within a few seconds he felt a
slight burning sensation all over, and then a big whoosh of air. The door
opened on the far side, and he stepped out.
    “Ryan, are you all right?”
    “Yes,” he said, but he actually felt
like he had been in the sun too long.
     
    Looking for Marty, they ran to catch
up.
He had grabbed a pushcart, and was walking up to a counter, which seemed to be
some sort of a medical supply room. Ryan watched as he held up a small
electronic tablet to one of several scanners, and an attendant brought him a
syringe, a small bandage, some gauze and few other small items.
     
    Ryan said, “What’s he doing?”
”Oh, he’s just shown the supply room operator which procedure he’s going to
perform, and they have given him the necessary supplies.”
     
    Marty looked everything over and
satisfied, moved on. Following behind, Lisa and Ryan soon found themselves in a
room watching as Marty waved his tablet over the bed frame. After it beeped, he
prepared to give the patient an injection. Ryan raised his hand and stepped
forward.

“Wait Marty, before you give him the shot, I just have to ask, how do you know
you have the right patient?”
     
    Marty said, “Well, I’m looking for bed
number 655, and this is its location. Also, my tablet would indicate if I was
at the wrong bed, with a small alarm.”
     
    “So, you verify that the bed you’re
standing next to, is the correct bed?”
    Marty looked a little perturbed, “Yes.”
    “So how do you know that the patient in
that bed is the correct patient?”
     
    Lisa answered, “When a person is
admitted to the facility, they are assigned a bed number.”   Ryan thought about that as Marty went back
to work.
     
    “Lisa, do you never find patients in
the wrong beds?” he asked.
     
    “Sometimes we do,” she said, “but look
closely and you’ll see that the patient is wearing a hospital wristband. It is
linked to the specific bed he’s been assigned, and only the hospital registrar
can remove it.”
     
    She leaned closer to Ryan, “If the
patient is out of his bed it sends a signal to the nurses’ desk. If the signal
remains active for more than a few minutes, the staff will run an automated
sweep of the floor. Then they locate the patient and help them back to their
own bed.”
    He considered the logic in their
security, and couldn’t find any flaws.
    “Really Ryan, it’s foolproof.”
     
    He was getting tired of hearing people
tell him that.
    “It certainly seems so.”
     
    He looked at the time and said, “Thank
you Lisa, this has been very helpful. May I call you if I have more questions?”
“Absolutely, it was my pleasure,” she said.
     
    Ryan made his way back to the elevator,
and then to his office.
    It was a solid system. It was simple
and clear, too. The possibility of human error had been eliminated. At least it
certainly seemed so, and clearly they thought so.
     
    Feeling a little frustrated, he put his
notes away, retrieved his things and headed home. The words ‘fool proof’ were still ringing in his ears when he sat down to dinner.
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
    Meanwhile in Dr. Bender’s labs, it was
another late night for Jeff.
He’d been able to get his grad students back to work, but now he was stuck with
a supply issue regarding some much-needed tissue samples.
     
    Working within his personal network of
lab administrators, he had finally tracked down acceptable samples, but could not
come up with the proper medium to perform the experiment. Speaking to a small
image of someone who looked equally tired, on his computer display, Jeff
thought he was near to success.
    “Look Mark, if you will let me have the
samples and the medium, I will let you use our buckets for one full week.”
“Jeff, I’m going to need two weeks, and they will need to be cleaned first. I’m
not putting those things in our centrifuge as they are now.”
Damn.
He was right.
    They were