Hospital noise methodology and survey results

Hospital noise is an ongoing patient satisfaction issue. In the United States, federal reimbursements to qualifying hospitals are dependent in part upon performance of the Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (HCAHPS) patient satisfaction survey, which includes a rating for the noise level at night. Acoustics By Design (ABD) has performed several comprehensive noise assessments of healthcare facilities and compared the various sound level results with patient satisfaction scores as a preliminary examination of the relationship between noise levels and patient satisfaction. This session explains the HCAHPS survey, describes the noise survey methodology developed by ABD, and shows the results of several selected noise surveys with the facilities’ associated patient satisfaction scores.