USA NOISY HOSPITALS REPORT
November 1st, 2005
BY MONICA DOBIENEW American research has blamed increased hospital patient and staff stress, plus a higher risk of medical errors, on rising levels of noise in medical facilities. Acoustic researchers at the Baltimore-based Johns Hopkins University, found that since 1960, average daytime hospital sound levels worldwide have risen from 57 decibels to 72 and night-time levels from 42 decibels to 60, exceeding the World Health Organisation hospital noise guideline maximum of 35 decibels. Furthermore, much hospital noise falls in the human speech frequency range, ...
Full access to this article can be arranged with permission from the client that first ordered it. Please contact us to request access. Entries are uploaded to our archive at least one year after being published by a client – free access is restricted to International News Services journalists for background research only. The article date indicates when copy was filed to a client, not when posted to this archive. Upon client requests, International News Services will remove such articles from the archive or not upload them in the first place. They are included to demonstrate the breadth of topics undertaken by the agency and also to help promote clients’ coverage.