At a hospital in the South of Sweden, a new meeting/lunch room was built for the staff at the emergency medical unit. When the staff used the room, they were not satisfied with the acoustics. A study was performed to evaluate how the room acoustic environment could be improved.
The relatively small acoustic intervention resulted in a lower sound pressure level and better speech intelligibility. It also resulted in a big change in how the staff perceives the sound environment.
According to the acoustic measurements, the acoustic intervention (installation of an acoustic ceiling and wall absorbers) resulted in a lower SPL and better speech intelligibility. The staff perceived the sound environment as much better in several ways, for example:
– the sound environment is now less tiring
– it is now easier to hear what is being said, and it is less demanding to speak to colleagues
– the sound environment is now much better adapted to the activities in the room; to have meetings and to relax during breaks
Read more – summary of the studyDownload file