Noise and Room Acoustic Conditions in a Tertiary Referral Hospital, Seoul National University Hospital

Cho, Wan-Ho; Jeong, Cheol-Ho; Chang, Ji-Ho; Lee, Seong-Hyun; Park, Moo Kyun; Suh, Myung-Whan; Han, Jae Joon

Hospitals, in general, are known to be not quiet according to various studies, see for examples . No results satisfied the World Health Organization guidelines for community noise of 35 dBA as (A-weighted equivalent sound pressure level) LAeq, which happens to be the noise limit for hospital rooms where patients are treated and observed [25] . Acoustically most interesting rooms in hospitals are two-fold: rooms where patients need good quality tranquility to focus on healing and rooms where staff needs concentration. Reverberation characteristics influence verbal communication between patients and staff. There is no building legislation for Korean hospitals in terms of reverberation time, but other countries have building regulations, e.g., Danish Building Regulation (BR18) setting a maximum reverberation time of 0.6 s for examination rooms and patient bedrooms in the frequency range of 125-4,000 Hz [26] . As the medical care is absolutely prioritized, hospitals tend to underestimate the importance of acoustics.