Noisy Wards Could Threaten Hospital Patients' Health

Study simulating the inpatient environment finds frequent sleep disturbances from machines, people

June 12, 2012 RSS Feed Print

Sharma agreed, especially with regard to centralizing various medical alarms away from the patient. "Using better technology, perhaps that is possible," he said. "That's probably where I think the field will be going."

"If the hospital is a place to heal then it needs to be a quieter environment," Buxton added. "We're talking about non-trauma places in a hospital where it would be possible, with some behavior changes by staff as well as in the layout and design of the space, to make the overall environment quieter. It's certainly a fixable situation."

More information

There's more on sleep's links to health at Harvard University.