Tuning Shared Hospital Spaces: Sound Zones in Healthcare

The problem of noise in hospitals is commonly tackled through noise abatement practices, which consider 'quietness' as a quality indicator. However, the influence of positive or negative subjective reactions to these sounds are rarely examined. Recent efforts emphasize the importance of considering the benefits of wanted sound while minimizing unwanted noise to reach a positive healthcare soundscape. The authors identified sound zones in shared hospital spaces as a means to achieve this through sound separation, noise masking and designed sound zone content. Listening evaluations were conducted to evaluate subjective responses of individuals from hearing a hospital soundscape across a variety of sound zone interventions. The authors conclude that sound zone interventions in shared hospital spaces offer subjective benefits that move beyond noise reduction. As an area for future work, sound zone interventions will be deployed in hospital settings to study potential long-term restorative effects on patients and better working conditions for staff.