Wheels on carts squeak. Nurses, doctors and staff chat.
And units in Suburban Hospital in Bethesda can get loud.
“This all affects the quality of the patients’ experience by making it less comfortable to rest,” said Barbara Jacobs, the hospital’s senior director of nursing operations.
But hospital officials have found a cure for high noise levels that can disrupt the hospital environment the Yacker Tracker.
The Yacker Tracker looks like a traffic signal and monitors noise levels in a given area. When volumes rise, the light changes from green to yellow. And if sound exceeds a set decibel level, the light turns red and issues a three- to five-second alarm.
The hospital is testing the trackers in a unit that tends to house older patients.
The two devices went off several times a day when the hospital first installed them six weeks ago, said Kimberly Beddow, unit director and registered nurse. Now people know when to lower the volume.
“It actually does the job,” Beddow said of the trackers. “It really gets [people’s] attention.”
A 2005 study by Johns Hopkins University acoustical engineers found that since 1960, hospital noise levels have risen from 57 decibels to 72 decibels during the day and from 42 decibels to 60 decibels at night. A vacuum cleaner generally produces 75 decibels of sound, and conversational speech hovers around 60 decibels.
Because much of the noise in hospitals falls within the human speech frequency levels, hospital employees are forced to speak louder to communicate, further increasing noise levels, according to the study.
Noise levels are among the top complaints from patients and staff, the study found.
Suburban Hospital has done more to reduce noise levels than installing Yacker Trackers. Hospital employees noticed the wheels on blood pressure machines made quite the racket, Jacobs said.
“We’ve changed hundreds of wheels on our blood pressure machines to reduce that noise,” she said.
Washington Adventist Hospital and Shady Grove Adventist Hospital do not have noise tracking devices, though one is on order for Shady Grove, said Shady Grove spokeswoman Jennifer Plaia. Shady Grove will use a device called the Logging Digital Sound Level Meter Kit.
But the hospitals do use the Vocera Communications System. With this system, caregivers and nurses wear devices similar to walkie-talkies around their necks. This means they can be reached directly, which reduces the use of the overhead intercom, Plaia said.
The Yacker Tracker also is used in some schools to keep noise levels down. Beddow said she learned about the device from a colleague whose husband uses one as a special needs teacher.
“It’s an extra way to give a message to staff that noise in the environment is getting louder,” Jacobs said.
abryant@gazette.net
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