Re:Hospitals. (Score 2, Interesting)

Yes, Hospitals are probably the biggest customer of paging companies. Most hospitals have in-house repeaters for better coverage than a cellphone. Especially in the underground morgue in the basement.

You are also likely to have better coverage in and around larger cities ensuring you receive the page (a must for medical professionals) and some technologies will resend pages if the device does not confirm receipt.

Check out http://www.usamobility.com/

As for "banana" phones... (please, don't start singing that damned song!) it depends on the facility I guess. Once the infrastructure is in place in a hospital, it's about as expensive as a high-end PBX desk phone so restricting it to a few important doctors just isn't required.

I work at a Hospital that uses "spectralink" phones - also called banana phones or bat phones depending on the yellow or black case it's in. They are a strictly in-house addition to the PBX system (you may be able to get a signal up to a few hundred feet outside the building, but that's it) and do not interfere with life support systems, wifi, etc.

I doubt any doctors actually have their own, it's mostly administration, management and other key people around the facility. Most departments will have a few "spares" which are rotated around with the staff... So you can always reach the in-house anesthesiologist on call by dialing a given number - but it could be any one of several people who answer depending on who's working that day.

If you need a specific doctor, you just page them.