Acoustic intervention
by Ingrid Fuchs (Concept Developer Healthcare Environments at Ecophon Germany) and Dr. Martin Schmelling (Specialist in Anesthetics, St.Marys Hospital)
In July 2014 an optimization and acoustic intervention started in the pre-located areas of the OR (pre-op and post-op patient areas) at the St. Marien Hospital in Siegen, Germany. It has been a challenge for the technical management to keep the room acoustics on the agenda, during the whole planning process of the hospital refurbishment. The quality of better speech intelligibility and a calm working environment hasn’t been explored before – so it has been, let’s say an unknown advantage. Noise is very stressful partly due to work tasks and partly when communicating with patients and their family members. I can be difficult and sometimes even impossible. When the noise increases around you people tend to talk louder and simple tasks like preparing the sterile set-up for the next operation can be very loud.
