Noise in Hospitals
The Noise Warning Sign has proved very popular for use
on hospital wards, reminding people to be quiet in the usual
locations:
- Nurses station
- Corridors close to wards
- Noise on the hospital ward
- Ward entrances and exits
These signs are commonly used within NICU
and neonatal wards, as well as on other general and intensive
care units to remind not just the visitors but also the staff
and patients to keep their noise levels down.
The mere existence of the noise warning sign in an obvious
location is often enough to remind people about the area's
sensitivity to noise. |
Noise at the Nurses Station and Corridor |
Why a Noise Warning Sign
 |
Other than important alarms, there is usually
no need for excessive noise on a hospital ward. It is usually
caused by visitors and sometimes staff talking louder than necessary
or people being careless when moving medical equipment or patients
between wards. |
The SoundEar is a clear and simple reminder to keep the noise levels
down and if you forget it lights up to remind you.
Using the Noise Warning Sign in a Hospital
The perfect location for a sign depends on the layout and the acoustics
of the area in question. The most important aspect of the SoundEar
is that it reminds people to keep the level down, so it is best
to mount them where they are clearly visible to anybody entering
the room or area. Often the Nurses Station is a good place to position
one unit as this is usually in view to any body visiting and also
to constantly remind the staff.
 There
is no simple rule about the level at which the sign should light
up. Hospital rooms and areas have different ambient noise levels
and different acceptable limits. An intensive care unit will have
a much lower noise threshold than a busy ward dealing with less
critical illnesses. The best way to find the comfortable limit for
a ward it to set the sign up to 55 dB (using the dial on the back).
Run the sign for a few hours, or even a few days, and get a feel
for whether it is being too sensitive for the given environment
or whether it is letting people get away with too much. Adjust up
or down by 5 dB as needed.
A level of 45 to 55 dB is common for neonatal
and intensive care areas and 50 to 60 dB is common for other areas,
although it does depend a lot on the acoustics of the areas in question.
Standard or Data Logging?
For an immediate indication that the noise levels are too high,
the standard SoundEar is perfectly adequate. If you want to check
the noise environment over a period of time, finding out when the
noisiest and quietest times are or checking the function of quiet
times then the SoundLog is ideal. It stores the average noise level
every five minutes for download to a computer and analysis.
An approach taken by some hospitals and neonatal units is to have
a few standard SoundEar signs and just one or two SoundLog data
logging signs. As the signs mount on a single fixing and simply
plug in using the power adapter supplied, it is very easy to move
them round. One solution is to have a standard SoundEar sign in
each room of interest and move the data logging sign around the
different rooms, replacing the standard sign that is there for a
few days. |
