Wentworth-Douglass Hospital
The Wentworth-Douglass Professional Center includes ten physician groups specializing in family practice, internal medicine, and specialty medicine. Divided across four floors, the group practices feature suites with physician offices, exam rooms, registration business areas, and patient waiting rooms, as well as an on-site lab and imaging suite. Associated with Wentworth-Douglass Hospital, the Professional Center features an open plan design of 78,000 square feet.
The Dover Family Practice, located on the center’s second floor, required assistance solving acoustical challenges within the suite. The practice’s reception/registration area features patient check-in and checkout counters at either end; and due to the suite’s open design, conversations at the registration desk and noise from the nearby business area were creating unwanted distractions for patients in the waiting room. A radio playing at the counter served as ad hoc cover for distracting conversations and unwanted noise activity; but staff knew a more permanent solution was required.
Solution
When Dover Family Practices expressed concerns about distracting noise, Alison Brisson, Plant Operations Manager for Wentworth-Douglass Hospital, engaged an acoustics consultant to address the space’s sound challenges.
The consultant surveyed the ten group practice suites and determined two major issues: conversations from the registration desk could be overheard in the waiting room, and business office noise was creating a distracting atmosphere.
Additionally, the consultant determined the most effective way to improve the acoustic environment while maintain the suite’s open concept ambiance was to deploy a sound masking system, advising Brisson to test the Qt 600 sound masking solution from Biamp’s Cambridge line. The patient waiting room of the Dover Family Practice was selected for a pilot installation.
We found the Qt 600 model... ideally suited for our open space design.
ALISON BRISSONPlant Operations Manager
Wentworth-Douglass Hospital
Conclusion
Over the course of several weeks, the practice’s patients and nursing staff were surveyed on their ability to overhear conversations and noise from the office area, as well as the general ambiance of the space. The feedback from patients and staff was overwhelmingly positive.
The Qt 600 proved to be highly effective, providing the appropriate level of sound masking and noise reduction. As a result of the initial pilot, Brisson expanded the system into all ten physician group practices, as well as the lab and imaging suites. The low-profile Qt Emitters were placed in hallways outside of exam rooms and within waiting rooms throughout the Professional Center’s four floors.
“I was impressed with the low impact of the installation process,” said Brisson. “With CSM’s Qt 600 in place, there is less distraction from unwanted sounds and conversations. Patients and staff can now experience the positive ambiance we wanted to achieve through the open design concept, and we gained a greater level of patient satisfaction.”