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High quality acoustics are an important factor for improving hospital and healthcare facilities, leading to improved service, a better patient experience, and a better financial bottom line.
A key element of the patient experience includes protecting the speech privacy of patients in admitting areas, emergency rooms and in-patient rooms, anywhere that patients interact verbally with healthcare service providers. Patients will feel more confident in their healthcare provider when they are receiving and giving personal information in a setting that affords a sense of privacy. Also, speech privacy is required to comply with HIPAA rules.
The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) Privacy Rule protects all "individually identifiable health information" held or transmitted by a covered entity (provider) in any form or media, whether electronic, paper, or oral. The Privacy Rule calls this information "protected health information” (PHI). (45 C.F.R. § 160.103). PHI can include the individual’s physical or mental health or condition, the provision of health care, or payment. According to these regulations, a provider must have in place appropriate administrative, technical, and physical safeguards to protect the privacy of PHI from any intentional or unintentional use or disclosure. (45 C.F.R. § 164.530)
Clearly, if a discussion with or about a patient or their family may be overheard and understood by others, then that patient’s privacy has not been protected, and the provider is not in compliance with the Privacy Rule.
The Privacy rule applies to a wide variety of functional spaces in a healthcare facility, including open plan areas such as admitting, waiting rooms, emergency rooms and billing offices, and closed spaces such as examination and patient rooms. The acoustical solutions for patient privacy in a facility can include sound absorption, isolation partitions and sound masking.
Sound masking is a system by which low level random noise in the speech frequency range is injected into the space using small loudspeakers, sometimes called “emitters”. This low level noise can interrupt, or mask, the hearing and comprehension of speech between others at a certain distance. The “privacy distance” will depend on factors such as the physical layout of the room, the acoustical interventions in place, and the level and spectrum of the masking sound. At the facility design stage, acoustical modeling can be done to achieve an adequate Privacy Index (PI). For existing facilities, on-site acoustical testing can be combined with modeling and design evaluation to develop speech privacy solutions.
In addition to enhancing speech privacy, a sound masking system, along with other physical and administrative solutions, can provide a better sleep experience for patients. There is evidence that a well-designed, installed and commissioned (tuned) sound masking system can reduce noise disturbance awakenings in patient wings. This will result in better patient outcomes, higher survey scores and improved financial performance for the provider.
The acoustical quality of a facility is a vital part of the total facility improvement plan. A good start is to conduct an audit to assess the existing acoustical conditions. Then, include acoustical design upgrades in facility maintenance and capital improvement plans. The results will be rewarding.
