The hospitals, among them the Mayo Clinic, subscribe to the Continuous Ambient Relaxation Environment Channel, or CARE, from Healing HealthCare Systems, which broadcasts quiet instrumental music and restful nature scenes around the clock. More than 170 hospitals in 41 states are combating the noise problem with music designed to cover up or distract the patient from existing noises. And staff members were urged to refrain from using direct light, telephones, intercoms, televisions and radios between 11 p.m. Nighttime X-rays were changed from 3 a.m. To minimize patient interruptions, nurses rescheduled several nighttime tests and checkups to an hour more convenient for patients. Employees replaced paper towel dispensers with simple towel holders, installed padding on doors and around clipboards - and managed to lower the average nighttime decibel levels from 53 to 41 for a semiprivate room.
The Mayo Clinic staff, which also created its own sound committee, has taken similar steps. One cart, regularly wheeled down hospital hallways, registered 90 decibels or about the same output as a hair dryer next to one’s ear. Quieter equipmentThe biggest noise reduction came from the repair and replacement of heavy rolling equipment. “We have the happiest bunch of people I’ve ever worked with in my life,” said nurse June Morrison, who headed the committee. Pagers were set to vibrate instead of ring, bright yellow signs reading “Quiet Please, Healing in Progress” were posted throughout the hospital, and the hospital staff was urged to speak quietly when possible and conduct long conversations in private. They discovered no shortage of sounds at odds with a good night’s rest. They kept personal journals, noting noise and interruptions, and placed sensitive sound-measuring equipment in several rooms throughout the floor. I can’t tell you how many times that woke me up.”Īs part of their study, two Mayo Clinic nurses spent the night - as if they were patients - in the thoracic surgery unit of the hospital. “But you should have heard the joking and laughing going on. “I realize you have to work at work,” said Carpenter, whose room was close to a nurses’ station. To patients, already in an anxious, if not pained state, the unfamiliar noises can be, at the very least, irritating. The high-tech advancements have desensitized the medical staff to bothersome sounds, while forcing them to communicate more loudly simply to be heard. Intercoms, pagers, televisions and a host of sophisticated medical monitoring equipment - all outfitted with their own array of beepers, buzzers and alarms - have gradually raised the base level of noise. High-tech dinTechnology is widely blamed for disturbing the library-like quiet that prevailed in the nation’s hospitals almost a half-century ago.
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