Toward this end, room designs traditionally packed with several patients per room are being replaced or supplemented with single-occupancy rooms. This provides more patient privacy in accord with HIPAA regulations, along with improved sleep, environmental control, and lower infection risk.

The benefits of such a patient-centered hospital environment are increasingly being extended to in-room audio, where advanced design allows more patient-control, better audio quality, and a streamlined architecture.

In the past, each hospital room often contained several patients and a speaker for each such as “pillow speakers,” as well as TV speakers, intercom speakers, nurse call speakers, and an emergency broadcast speaker.

The background noise from all these speakers could be a problem at times. The audio quality could be sub-par as well, for instance, with pillow speakers, which tend to require frequent replacement, due to rough patient handling. The clarity and reliability of pillow speakers can also deteriorate with such use until they may require replacement once or twice a year at a cost of about $200 each time.

As a consequence, hospitals are moving away from a multitude of speakers in traditional patient rooms to fewer, better, more durable speakers in private rooms.

Now technology has advanced to the point where a single self-amplified “all-in-one” speaker set like that from OWI, a manufacturer of advanced audio equipment, can enhance patient control of audio while replacing several separate speakers and improving sound quality. Such all-in-one speakers further streamline the process by combining the speakers, amplifier, volume control, and input plate.

“Overhead, all-in-one speakers with wireless Bluetooth connectivity like OWI’s allow patients to more conveniently control song selection and volume from their iPhones or MP3 devices without plugging into the wall or having to reach for wall or pillow speaker controls,” says Jud Miles, a senior designer at RTKL, a global architectural design consulting firm that offers patient-oriented health care design, among other specialties.

Bluetooth compatibility for the all-in-one speakers allows patients to play music from their own smartphones from the overhead speaker so they are no longer limited to earphones, a plug-in cord, or listening only to what the hospital offers. Patients listening to music together is a great step forward, more hospitals should be implementing this practice, hospitals can look on any audio/sound equipment website to help them see what would be best for their hospital.

“By connecting wirelessly to the overhead speaker, patients can listen to their own song selections from bed with audio quality much better than typical pillow speakers,” says Miles. “Since patients do not touch the speaker, the system will last much longer than pillow speakers.”

OWI offers ceiling and wall-mounted speakers for hospitals with several additional advantages compared to traditional audio equipment. For instance, the all-in-one, overhead speakers can do the work of several speakers such as pillow speakers, TV speakers, and paging/intercom speakers, while improving audio quality.

Since the two source, self-amplified ceiling speakers with Bluetooth come with a built-in amplifier, this also optimizes high-fidelity reproduction and response without an external amplifier that could otherwise take up space in the patient’s room.

With up to 40 watts of class D digital amplifier power delivered directly to the speaker, OWI’s AMP-ER2TR6 self-amplified speakers are powerful enough to drive additional non-amplified speakers, yet compact enough to mount discretely above a two-foot by two-foot ceiling tile with Bluetooth.

“You don’t have to worry about finding a place to put an amplifier in the patient room because the speakers have an integrated amplifier that fits neatly above a ceiling panel,” said Miles, who has specified the overhead, self-amplified speakers in private patient rooms in new hospital construction at several locations across the country.

“From an infrastructure and installation standpoint, it’s a nicer solution than trying to find a location and power for the amp somewhere in the patient room,” said Miles. “Instead of having all these separate line items on an equipment list: the speaker, amplifier, volume control, and input plate, it’s all one line item on the equipment list.”

For those without Bluetooth capability, a volume control knob and audio input jack are built on a single wall plate, said Miles.

To improve clinical communication, such all-in-one speakers can also provide a unique priority override that automatically mutes music or TV in the patient room when a nurse call or emergency notification is announced. If there is a power outage in the hospital or local area, the speaker priority override messages can still come through, when connected to a paging system that is connected to a failsafe UPS device.

“From a hospital design, purchasing, installation, maintenance, and end user viewpoint, an all-in-one speaker is easier and less costly to use than traditional hardware,” said Miles.

Del Williams is a technical writer based in Torrance, Calif. He writes about health, business, technology, and educational issues, and has an M.A. in English from C.S.U. Dominguez Hills.

The post Patient-Centered Hospital Environment Extends to Audio appeared first on HCO News.

Acoustical comfort is a specific element that plays a key role in both the healing process and the overall productivity of the staff working in the facility.

The Three H’s
The studies are numerous regarding the importance of noise control within a health care facility. To reinforce the importance, refer to the three H’s: HCAHPS, HIPAA and Healing.

• HCAHPS: HCAHPS refers to the Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems survey. This is an attempt to measure customer satisfaction across health care providers in a consistent manner. The higher the level of scores an institution achieves may affect their level of reimbursement. These scores have become a primary focus of many hospital administrators for obvious reasons. Within this survey is a specific question regarding the noise level inside a patient’s room. Specifically it reads: “During this hospital stay, how often was the area around your room quiet at night?”
• HIPAA: HIPAA refers to Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, which has impacted a variety of patient confidentiality issues, and including the noise level in any area within a medical facility where a patient’s information is being discussed aloud. The acoustics of the facility play a critical role in controlling the audibility of this confidential information.
• Healing: Lastly, and most importantly, is healing. The data regarding noise control and its positive effect on healing is overwhelming and can be traced back as far as 1859 when Florence Nightingale stated in her book Notes on Nursing: “Unnecessary noise is the most cruel abuse of care which can be inflicted either on the sick or the well.”

If we want to provide a space that gives a person the optimum opportunity to heal, then noise must be controlled, providing a quiet space that allows doctors, nurses and patients the ability to clearly communicate with each other and offers the requisite privacy everyone deserves when discussing their personal health.

Understanding the True Impact

Acoustical comfort is intangible. Imagine taking a young child who is in need of medical attention to the hospital. You do not know the exact cause of the child’s ailment, but you know he or she is in need of help.

When you arrive at the hospital with your sick child, you may enter a waiting room or emergency room that is filled with people. In a situation where a loved one is sick or injured and the remedy is unknown, most people tend to become somewhat anxious. If the crowded waiting room is filled with people and noise, anxiety can mount and additional strain is placed on everyone. As the surrounding space grows louder, you speak louder – this is known as the Lumbar Effect.

Then you are asked to complete the appropriate paperwork for admittance into the medical facility. This may include insurance information, medical history and symptoms. Is this private information staying private, or are the acoustics of the space such that others may overhear you discussing this confidential information?

You are then met by a doctor or nurse who examines the child to confirm symptoms and you are asked many questions to help ascertain the extent of the illness or injury. Imagine if you are unable to clearly hear these questions, or if the doctor mishears your response. This could affect the proper diagnosis and prevent or delay proper recovery. The same could be said if a doctor’s prescribed treatment or medication is misheard by the nurse, which could result in the wrong medication being given to your child in an emergency situation.

If your child’s illness or injury is deemed necessary to require an overnight stay in the hospital, acoustical comfort and control remains a critical part of their recovery process. Once in a room, is he or she able to sleep well that night? Imagine all of the sounds in a hospital that is in operation 24 hours a day, 365 days a year:
• The patient next door who is in distress
• Public address announcements over the hospital intercom system
• Trays and gurneys with wheels that are out of alignment clattering down the hall
• Irregular equipment noises and alarms
• Doctors, nurses or visitors talking loudly in the hallways

If your child does not have a good night’s rest, their recovery time may be greatly extended due to an interruption in the body’s natural healing process. This impacts not only the child, but also the entire family.

Improving Comfort through Building Materials

The need to control noise in a healing space to maximize acoustical comfort is evident, but there are many ways to achieve a desired level of quiet through the building materials used in the structure itself. In considering noise and its relationship to the building materials, consider the building as you would the human body: as a series of systems that work in harmony. The walls and partitions are systems that interact with the ceiling, floor and openings such as doors and windows. Components of these systems that help maximize acoustical comfort include:
• The use of high-quality sound-absorbing ceiling tiles
• Sound-control drywall
• Viscoelastic polymers utilized between layers of wallboard: When this type of compound is sandwiched between two rigid layers of material (like drywall), it forms a damping system so that when sound waves pass through the structure, the sound energy is dissipated in the form of heat
• Proper use of sustainable insulation in the wall cavity: to significantly improve acoustical performance, interior walls should be insulated; the empty space between the wallboard faces should be completely filled with insulation to help eliminate air gaps, as any gap in an acoustical construction will also leak sound
• Sustainable Insulation is a category of insulation that is produced in a highly energy-efficient manner with “best-in-class” waste and water processes, and contains no added formaldehyde, acrylic, dyes or unnecessary fire retardants; it exceeds strict indoor air quality requirements and saves up to 12 times as much energy in its first year as the energy used to produce it
• High-quality doors used in the partition with a high sound transmission class (STC) rating

In conclusion, the physical health care space is omnipresent, so it is critical that health care designers and building specifiers consult with the manufacturers of the products selected to insure each will work in harmony as a system to create a space that will maximize the healing opportunity for the patients served.

Lucas J. Hamilton is the manager for Building Science Applications at CertainTeed and Douglas W. Nyberg is the business development manager for Vertical Markets at Saint-Gobain and CertainTeed.

The post Improving Acoustics to Improve a Patient’s Healing Experience appeared first on HCO News.