Challenge

Creating a quiet healing environment

The 201,909-square-foot Florida Hospital Wesley Chapel is spread across three stories. Patient rooms feature large floor-to-ceiling windows, nine-foot ceilings, and an interactive multimedia system that allows patients to communicate with family members and learn more about their ailments.

“Our entire facility was intentionally designed to promote patient healing, comfort, and privacy,” said Tracy Clouser, director of marketing for the Wesley Chapel, Fla., facility. “Everything from our building to policies to our hand-selected staff was created with the patient in mind.”

The large, sunny patient-room design presented several acoustic challenges for hospital administrators. The expansive windows reverberate sound in the patient rooms, leading to possible privacy and acoustic comfort issues.

Connecting each area of the hospital are hallways built with a slight curvature and include side mounted lighting. These slightly curved hallways allow nurses to see down the length of the hallway from their stations.

Additionally, the hospital features a large lobby with a three-story atrium featuring an all-glass front to allow in natural light. These features improve the patient comfort and staff productivity, but also allow sounds to being carried across great distances.

Solution

Sound masking helps Florida Hospital ensure care for the whole patient

“To ensure patient privacy and comfort in all 83 patient rooms, 18 emergency rooms, hallways, the main lobby, nurses’ stations, and operating rooms, we deployed sound masking,” said John Crouch, director of facilities.

With the unique design of the space, the best choice for Florida Hospital Wesley Chapel was a sound masking system.

Cambridge Sound Management’s Four Qt 600 systems were installed along with a network of 700 Qt emitters. The system was installed by SoundStage of Winter Park, Fla.

Result

With the Qt system deployed in over 70 percent of the facility, Florida Hospital Wesley Chapel offers an environment that promotes healing and comfort.

“We know the environment is an important aspect of the healing process,” said Clouser. “The Qt sound masking system is a perfect example of how every detail of the hospital was carefully considered to promote patient healing and comfort.”

With no restrictions on visiting hours, the system blocks out hallway noise so patients and visitors can get a peaceful night’s rest. In addition to having all private rooms, the system helps patients converse privately with family members, physicians, and clinical staff. 

This attention to detail is working. The hospital ranks in the 94th percentile for quietness among hospitals across the U.S. that use the Press Ganey survey for patient satisfaction.

“The system works exactly as designed,” said Crouch. “And the system is extremely easy to use and maintain.” With the Qt system, the hospital experiences no acoustic hot or cold spots, ensuring uniform sound masking coverage. It can also maintain a consistent background sound level throughout the entire facility making the sound masking unnoticeable to the hospital’s patients and staff.