Hospitals can be noisy places. Medical equipment beeping, doors swinging open and shut, elevators dinging, ice machines rumbling, people talking, toilets flushing, air conditioners humming…It’s hard to get a decent night’s rest. (Pictured: Gary Vance - Doug Fick)Although some consider noise just part of the hospital environment, patients aren’t among them.
In fact, patient satisfaction scores show that noise plays a big role in how satisfied they are with the care they receive. Hospitals committed to improving satisfaction and healing are listening to patients, and they are working to improve sound quality. Design plays a big role in shaping sound, assuring that there is adequate soothing, white noise, yet reducing amounts of what patients likely would deem disruptive noise.
BSA LifeStructures is working to bring noise to the forefront of the design process. It’s already making strides by thinking and designing patient rooms, public corridors and even nursing stations differently so that it improves the healing environment, and that includes the level and quality of sound.
Noise is getting more attention because patients are becoming so adamant that it’s affecting their healing. Noise is the most common patient complaint by a two-to-one margin, according to Press Ganey Associates in South Bend, which measures satisfaction and conducts research.
Reducing noise must be part of the “healing environment” equation.
That means finding the right balance of the right noise. After all, total silence can be just as unnerving as noise.
There are two main culprits of hospital noise: Equipment and the environment.
Mechanical systems undoubtedly are among the biggest noisemaker in a hospital. While it can’t be avoided, design can help reduce the volume. For example, mechanical systems and air handling systems should be strategically placed for both the efficiency of the system and the effect their sound has on patients and staff. That means not putting systems adjacent to or above a patient room, without sufficient insulation and buffers. Otherwise, for patients, it’s like trying to sleep next to a busy interstate.
Doug Fick, a BSA LifeStructures engineer, and Gary Vance, a hospital planner and designer with the firm, are working to help hospitals reduce noise. Some of their recommendations include:
* Select interior finishes, such as flooring and ceilings, which absorb sound.
* Review the installation during construction to identify variations in design.
* Acoustically separate the mechanical room and adjacent rooms providing a sound buffer.
* Place foam rubber padding in chart holders and in pneumatic tubes to reduce clanging.
* Use folded towel dispensers, which generate no noise, instead of noisy paper rolls.
Create enclosed space for nurses to do reports at shift change instead of having staff congregate at a centralized station, which time and again has shown to be one of the loudest sources of noise in patient rooms.
Design smaller nurses’ stations throughout the floor, a concept BSA LifeStructures has found successful; it makes it easier for nurses to do their jobs and reduces the amount of steps they have to take.
Place elevators at the end of hallways farthest away from patient rooms or locate elevators in the central core of nursing units.
Design private patient rooms, which have better sound quality than multi-bed rooms.
BSA LifeStructures, the largest architecture and engineering firm based in Indiana, specializes in designing facilities for healthcare, higher education and medical research. More information about the firm visit www.BSALifeStructures.com.
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