"Improving the facilities and the patient experience, improving service and the bottom line. That’s where we come in."

 

"We" is the Brooks Acoustics Corporation (BAC), which has provided engineering, design, and testing services in the fields of architectural acoustics, and environmental and industrial noise control since 1959; and Bennett Brooks was talking about the firm he has headed since 1992.

 

One might wonder what type of noise issues occur in hospitals and why they are so important to address, and Brooks is more than willing to discuss those questions. Speaking first about the types of noise issues, he explained, "We work on everything from small outpatient facilities like imaging labs with MRIs, to off-site power plants for hospitals – and on dining rooms, long-term care facilities, emergency rooms, patient wards, and post-op recovery rooms." He also mentioned different applications of acoustics, saying that in conference rooms you want people to be able to hear what you’re saying, whereas in admission areas, you aim for speech privacy.

 

Regarding MRI facilities, Brooks said, "MRIs make a lot of noise, and while they sometimes give earplugs to the people having the image taken, the technicians in the control room hear the squealing and whining that goes on all day long."

 

Brooks said sound can also be a safety and quality-of-care issue. "If you have too much noise it hurts the concentration of lab workers. We’ve had labs doing diagnostic work, such as with electron microscopes, where the equipment itself is too noisy and the technicians can’t concentrate; so the work product and the productivity decreases and it becomes a work environment and quality issue." He went on to say that if the environment is extremely noisy, as in a power plant – and many hospitals are building power plants because they need to have their own supply of electricity if the lights go out – you have to offer hearing protection as a safety item. Even a power plant’s neighbors can be a concern, as people who live across from the hospital don’t want to hear the power plant all night long, and many communities have noise regulations.

 

Sound can also be a quality of life issue, according to Brooks, and that includes facilities from critical care, acute care, and long-term care, to skilled nursing and assisted living. "That’s where the resident dining rooms come in," he said. "That’s a major concern to people in assisted living, as that’s their social time. They go to dinner and want to be able to talk with their friends. So it’s very important for their quality of life."

 

BAC handles these issues using architectural and engineering solutions, whether having enough mufflers and thick walls in a power plant to make sure the plant is compliant with noise codes, to installing specialty doors and walls in less-noisy environments, to the treatment of mechanical systems and lab equipment.

 

Brooks also talked about HCAHPS, or Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems. "With the new health care laws and regulations, we want to improve the patient experience so that our providers can get better ratings on their HCAHPS surveys and meet the Joint Commission and Facilities Guideline Institute requirements for hospital facilities."

 

He explained that patients receive surveys when they leave hospitals, and one of the questions is, "Was the area around your room quiet at night?" In many cases, the responses have been worse than answers to questions about management of your pain or were you given the necessary information when you left the hospital. Brooks said there’s a reward or penalty on the provider’s total Medicare reimbursements, depending on their HCAHPS scores. "They take the money from the hospitals with bad scores and give it to the hospitals with good scores. It’s plus-or-minus 1 percent of your entire Medicare revenue and it’s scheduled to go up to 2 percent in 2017. So if you have a billion dollars of Medicare reimbursement, that could be a lot of money. That’s one of the motivations for making acoustical improvements, because it affects the bottom line of the organization."

 

BAC has been in business since 1959, with Brooks taking the reins in 1992. Originally based in Connecticut, the firm has been doing business in Florida for many years, and five years ago opened its office in South Florida. "We’re here to improve the facilities and the patient experience, and ultimately the bottom line," Brooks said. That’s exactly where Brooks Acoustics Corporation comes in.