On the acoustics of operating rooms.

Abstract

Designing modern operating rooms to meet al.l design criteria can be a challenge. Creating a sterile, well‐lit, temperature and humidity appropriate environment for medical operations typically takes precedence over the acoustics of the operating room. The sterile, washable operating room surfaces are commonly hard and reflective, offering little sound absorption. These surface finishes result in strong discrete reflections, increased background noise, and reduced speech intelligibility. Code mandated energy efficiency and ventilation requirements coupled with the owner‐driven desire for economical mechanical systems can result in excessive HVAC noise, adding to background noise levels. Yet, speech intelligibility and speech privacy levels are expected to be superb to minimize errors due to miscommunication and to prevent the unintentional spread of confidential patient information. The acoustical challenge is to design operating rooms to control noise and to enhance room acoustics without affecting the performance of other systems. Speech intelligibility and impulse response measurements from modern hospital operating rooms and design strategies will be discussed.