The Sound of Patient Experience

A program to improve the sonic environment for patients requires three pillars: administrative policy, operational practices and facility improvement.  Are policies in place to reduce noise and to create an acoustical environment of healing?  Are care givers cognizant of the sounds in their area and taking steps to provide quiet where needed?  Are facilities as quiet as they can be?

 

Improvement in every organization starts at the top.  Policies must be created that recognize the importance of the sonic environment to the patient experience, and in turn to better outcomes, which have financial consequences for an organization.  The overall mission must be emphasized.  An example of a mission statement is, “Recognizing that noise impinges on patient care, the Mission of the ‘Silence is Golden’ Quality of Care Team is to create a quiet environment that enhances both patient safety and optimal healing”.  Priorities must be set that drive practices to meet measurable goals, such as improving “Quiet at night” scores.  A critical step toward a great sonic environment, is an assessment of the acoustics in existing areas, with a comprehensive acoustical audit.  Then data mining can provide correlations between the acoustical environment, patient outcomes and patient survey results.  This will lead to the identification of areas for improvement in care practices and facility operations.

 

Awareness of the acoustical environment by the front-line caregivers, doctors, nurses and staff, is the key to improving outcomes.  Each caregiver must be given the task to support the patient experience mission of a healing sonic environment.  Peer group panels can disseminate the mission and the approach.  Then the Quality of Care Team can begin to assess the existing environment in each area, provide noise control recommendations for caregiver behaviors, the equipment in use and for other operational procedures, and to verify improvements in patient experience, such as the frequency of awakenings, after the implementation of recommended noise control solutions. 

 

The ultimate goal of a facility should be achieving the best possible patient experience and outcomes.  This objective should be kept in mind when maintaining, building or renovating any facility, major system or process.  The acoustic parts of these building components should be planned, designed and implemented in such a way as to enhance the healing process. 

 

Considerations of acoustics are key factors in improving the patient experience, and should be discussed and planned for at each stage of facility maintenance and improvement.  These factors include mechanical system (air conditioning/ventilation) noise, sound isolation between spaces, speech privacy where needed (admitting/examination rooms/billing), room reverberation and sound absorption in vital spaces (nurses stations and dining halls), and sleep enhancing quiet in patient wards.  It is much easier to create a successful, efficient and productive facility when critical factors are included from the beginning, often at a lower cost.

 

A commitment to a better sonic environment begins with policy development based on measurable data, and continues with incremental improvements in care practices and facilities as opportunities are identified.  The results will be satisfying patient experiences, better patient outcomes and a sense of accomplishment for caregivers.  That can be very rewarding for the provider.

 

We welcome your thoughts on the acoustics of the Patient Experience, and how that relates to your efforts to create an environment of healing.