Quiet Hospitals?

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I recently read an article that stated hospitals are try to enact designated "quiet times" due to bad survey scores.

The article went on to state that scored have improved due to these quiet times. One of the hospitals mentioned was St. Joeseph's in Chicago.

Im wondering, does your hospital do anything to address the noise levels and how noisy do you think your hospital is in general? Are these "quiet times" really necessary in your opinion? Do nurses every get reprimanded for making too much noise?

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Specializes in Palliative, Onc, Med-Surg, Home Hospice.

The facility I used to work at have "quiet zones" and "quiet hours". They put signs out, and asked visitors to please remain quiet during those times and in the quiet zones (L&D/Mom-baby and ICU) visitors were limited to immediate family only.

On my unit they put this really stupid stop light in the nurses station that would be green if we were quiet, yellow if we got too loud and red if we were crazy loud. The stupid thing also started ringing when we were too loud. Defeated the purpose and the day shift nurses wore out the batteries. :) they took it down.

As far as reprimanding: Yep, they gave verbals. And yep, sometimes the unit was very loud.

The facility I am at now doesn't have quiet times but does have the "quiet zones" (The units, NICU, Mom-Baby, Peds and Nursery). And for the most part, we don't have a problem with noise on my unit. Except from some patients.

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Yes. I have. I am very loud. One of my old nurse managers had a little librarian desk bell that she would *PING* and say, "Farawyn...shhhhhh..."

The old HOH patients, though? They LOVED me.

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The facility I used to work at have "quiet zones" and "quiet hours". They put signs out, and asked visitors to please remain quiet during those times and in the quiet zones (L&D/Mom-baby and ICU) visitors were limited to immediate family only.

On my unit they put this really stupid stop light in the nurses station that would be green if we were quiet, yellow if we got too loud and red if we were crazy loud. The stupid thing also started ringing when we were too loud. Defeated the purpose and the day shift nurses wore out the batteries. :) they took it down.

As far as reprimanding: Yep, they gave verbals. And yep, sometimes the unit was very loud.

The facility I am at now doesn't have quiet times but does have the "quiet zones" (The units, NICU, Mom-Baby, Peds and Nursery). And for the most part, we don't have a problem with noise on my unit. Except from some patients.

We had the stop light too. Ugh. RED.

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Specializes in Med-Surg.

We have designated "quiet times" and the traffic lights. The lights got turned off because normal hospital noises like the tube station or elevators were setting them off. The designated quiet time hardly happens because of visitors, confused patients, admissions, ect...

Most complaints about noise come from patients saying night shift is too loud.

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Each evening, at 9pm, my level 1 teaching/trauma hospital broadcasts the following:

"Good evening,

Many of our patients are now preparing to go to sleep. Please, help our patients heal, by speaking softly and keeping noises to a minimum. Thank you."

It broadcasts overhead in a rather loud tone (ironic), and they repeat it twice.

A few weeks ago I entered an elderly patients room. I asked how her evening was, and if she had slept well. She replied, "No, the nurses out there kept me up all night, laughing and acting obnoxious." She then proceeded to repeat every one of their jokes, verbatim.

I was surprised at how attuned she was. Our nurse manager has gotten after night shift many times, requesting hushed tones. Apparently there's room for improvement.

I apologized on their behalf and kept her door closed so she could sleep.

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