Speech intelligibility in hospitals

Abstract

Effective communication between staff members is key to patient safety in hospitals. A variety of patient care activities including admittance, evaluation, and treatment rely on oral communication. Surprisingly, published information on speech intelligibility in hospitals is extremely limited. In this study, speech intelligibility measurements and occupant evaluations were conducted in 20 units of five different U.S. hospitals. A variety of unit types and locations were studied. Results show that overall, no unit had "good" intelligibility based on the speech intelligibility index (SII > 0.75) and several locations found to have "poor" intelligibility (SII < 0.45). Further, occupied spaces were found to have 10%-15% lower SII than unoccupied spaces on average. Additionally, staff perception of communication problems at nurse stations was significantly correlated with SII ratings. In a targeted second phase, a unit treated with sound absorption had higher SII ratings for a larger percentage of time as compared to an identical untreated unit. Taken as a whole, the study provides an extensive baseline evaluation of speech intelligibility across a variety of hospitals and unit types, offers some evidence of the positive impact of absorption on intelligibility, and identifies areas for future research.

Reducing Hospital ICU Noise: A Behavior‐Based Approach

“…Their study results supported the fact that decreasing the noise levels will increase the speech intelligibility [28]. These findings were echoed by Ryherd et al (2013), who concluded that none of the five hospital's twenty units showed a good average speech intelligibility rating. Nursing stations in particular recorded poor speech intelligibility ratings [29].…”

“…These findings were echoed by Ryherd et al (2013), who concluded that none of the five hospital's twenty units showed a good average speech intelligibility rating. Nursing stations in particular recorded poor speech intelligibility ratings [29]. These studies clearly indicate the negative effect of hospital noise on effective communication and its impact on patient care and safety.…”

Speech intelligibility in Parkinson's disease patients with zona incerta deep brain stimulation

“…Factors beyond speech articulation, such as intonation and rhythm, have been suggested to be at least moderately potent factors in determining intelligibility (Khan et al 2013) to some speakers (Feenaughty et al 2014). The present study additionally introduced an even higher level of control of speech amplitude in the assessments, a factor that has been highlighted recently in connection with assessments of intelligibility (Ryherd et al 2012). Thus, linguistically richer samples and greater control over confounding factors were shown here to negate the adverse effects of cZi-DBS that were observed previously in the 12 months Post-op evaluation (Johansson et al 2014).…”

“…The present study additionally introduced an even higher level of control of speech amplitude in the assessments, a factor that has been highlighted recently in connection with assessments of intelligibility (Ryherd et al. ). Thus, linguistically richer samples and greater control over confounding factors were shown here to negate the adverse effects of cZi‐DBS that were observed previously in the 12 months Post‐op evaluation (Johansson et al.…”

“…Thus, our previous evaluation of speech intelligibility indicated primarily adverse effects of cZi on intelligibility and especially in listening conditions with background noise, a factor that has received increased recent attention in connection with clinical assessment of dysarthric speakers (Ryherd et al 2012). The method used in our previous assessment of intelligibility effects of cZi-DBS included blinded transcription of single words extracted from a read speech passage.…”