In spite of everything, hospitals try to keep down the noise

From constant beeps of machines and the footsteps up and down the hallway to the patient on the other side of the room who refuses to turn his television's volume down, hospitals have a well-deserved bad rap when it comes to getting much-needed rest.

Noise problems in hospitals have received more attention in recent years, including research showing it as more than an inconvenience. A study published online in June in the Annals of Internal Medicine found that hospital noise disrupts patients' sleep and affects their cardiovascular function.

An author of that study, Jo Marie Solet, Ph.D., a clinical instructor in medicine at Harvard Medical School, said lack of sleep affects people's immune systems that fight infections, their mood, memory and the ability to process information.

"People who have less sleep suffer more from pain," said Dr. Solet.

In addition to affecting patient health, noisy hospitals could also see changes in reimbursements they receive for providing care. The Affordable Care Act links hospital reimbursements for care to patient satisfaction surveys and other hospital quality measures.

Bob Hoffman, chief nursing officer at Wilkes-Barre General Hospital, compares hospitals to small cities, where noise is a constant.

"There's a lot of people taking care of you," Mr. Hoffman said. "For every patient, probably at least 15 caregivers interact with them at a given time."

Mr. Hoffman and other health care officials who monitor patient surveys of their experiences know that the question about the area around their room "always" being quiet at night usually has the lowest score.

According to patient surveys from July 2010 to June 2011 from the Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems, which provides survey data reported on most hospitals throughout the country, Pennsylvania's patient surveys report always having a quiet environment around their rooms 51 percent of the time, less than the national average of 59 percent.

Most hospitals in the Scranton area have survey ratings in the 50 percent range.

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In spite of everything, hospitals try to keep down the noise