Health care and information technology

¶ … Noise Reduction

Information technology can be harnessed in a litany of inventive and novel ways so as to reduce the overall noise level in a hospital environment. This report will list a number of real-world and already-used examples that can be used with moderate to little investment on the part of the hospital. Just changing procedures and timings of certain things using IT technology, including hardware and software, is surprisingly easy to do.

Many alert and tracking systems of the past have used noticeable, and sometimes obnoxious, sounds such as tones, alarms and so forth. The article reviewed for this assignment makes note of the use of overhead/ceiling-mounted alerts rather than actual buzzers or tones as well as the use of wireless headsets for both phones and radios so that phones can ring and people can discuss things over the phone or radio without the chatter of phone ringtones and other alarms making an area noiswer than it needs to be. Phone rings can be piped to headsets and the overhead lights that show alerts all reduce noise.

IT can also be used to manage things such as the timing of when the air conditioners or blower motors in general do or do not come on, cell phone jammers can be used to discourage the use of cell phones where the electronic interference or the sound of talking and phone ringing in general is not permissible or courteous and electronic records and/or quieter laser printers have replaced the noisy inkjet and dot matrix printers of yesteryear. The use of vibrating telephones and alerts on both phones and tablets are starting to take the place of pagers that have been a hallmark of nurses and doctors around the nation for years. In short, a major part of using IT to reduce noise is to replace tones, rings and alarms with vibrations or visual alerts that accomplish the same thing as well as the use of newer technology that is quieter (if not silent) as compared to prior technology that focused on output and such rather than the overall noise level.

Another way that noise can be limited through the use of IT is also touched up in the assigned article. The use of camera and other monitors/surveillance can allow patients and their visitors to close their doors while still be monitored from afar with the current status of the patient as well as their vitals still streaming freely even though privacy has been requested. This certainly cannot replace all the diagnosis and care that is sometimes need but it absolutely serves the purpose of keeping tabs on a patient that is stable and/or is simply being held for observation.

Conclusion