Yacker Tracker in the NICU ???

Nurses General Nursing

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So they just put one of these things on our unit. It's like a stoplight that goes yellow to red when there is too much noise. We are a small NICU unit. Seriously? I'm pretty insulted to be treated like a child. I tend to pick my battles wisely but this is just too much.

What do you think about the Yacker Tracker?
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Does it alarm, give a print out of who was talking too loud, or a shock to the perpetrator (there you go Risk Manager :yeah:) ?

I would be all over that, when the manager came in I would simply state, "That thing was lit up all night and you have got to do something about all of that cart noise!" (or whatever the source of the non human noise).

In addition to three Yacker Trackers, our director went so far as to have our clerk walk through the unit every two hours with a device to measure the noise that was made. That lasted about two weeks before it was determined that it wasn't staff making the noise, but patients, visitors, and equipment. It felt a little extreme.

Our hospital used these stupid things for about 3 months. They were horrible. They put ours within 2 feet of the tele monitor on our floor and in PCCU...wanna guess how many times an hour ours hit red. 😂

I kinda like the idea of this. I really hate noise and it ruins my concentration when there's too much noise, plus it's awful for the patients. I always worked hard to keep the noise levels down in the ICU at night so that patients could sleep. There are quite a few studies related to ICU psychosis and noise levels related to patients not getting ample sleep.

My own personal pet peeve though is constant alarms that are ignored by nurses. I just can't understand that if your HR alarm is set at 100 and your patient's HR is 101 why you would just let that ring and ring. If they're known to be slightly tachy and are stable change your parameters slightly so that when something does go wrong someone might actually pay attention. It makes me batty! Constant noise is a stressor and negates actual important alarms. Alarm fatigue is a real thing, and a dangerous one,.

My floor is HORRIBLE for alarms. With tele and bed alarms I find by the end of shift you are deaf to it. I'm not sure what the answer is since we have so many who need to be on bed alarms and tele. My pet peeve is nurses not responding to beeping iv's. If I can hear it down the hall and I have to walk 200 feet to find it...it kind of pisses me off to find the nurse in charge of the patient reviewing FB in the nurses station 5 feet from the door.

We have one on our unit and I see nothing wrong with it. It does get pretty loud at the nurses station at times and just put yourself in the patients shoes when they are trying to rest. In a Nicu I would think it would keep the staff mindful of their noise level as the babies also need to rest.

Yeah, I'm with you there. Or if the call lights are going off and it wasn't a particular nurse's patient it would get ignored even if it was just to get some fresh water. God forbid they answer it because the patient might need a (wait for it...) bedpan or assistance voiding. :nurse::angrybird9:

Oh yes, the good ole stop light. Darn thing is always red, even when whispering or opening a box of gloves.

We also have management walking around with apps that read the decibels of noise.

If we are quiet, we get nothing.

Nosey? We get a Mentos Mint.

Nothing like rewarding bad behavior. Who doesn't want a mint? Lol.

Specializes in Psych.

^^^ same here! Or when the noise level suddenly drops. . . .

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