> Same with audio on machines, that constant beep is annoying to you, but it means the machines are operating and you are getting your prescribed fluidsThis article is a terrible treatment of the issue. The NYT article [1] or actual research papers are far better.
To try and sum up the actual issue that's being discussed: it's a tragedy of the commons situation, where the commons is a patient's sleep.
Every device and procedure priorities derisking above ALL else. In aggregate, this results in a huge negative impact on sleep.
The suggested change in behavior is to simply prioritize quality sleep somewhere about "irrelevant."
From the original research, a few points (from memory):
- Outcomes for non-critical patients are not substantially improved by the "every 2(?) hour vital check" regime. It's followed mostly because of legacy medical inertia
- There is little effort to batch interactions
- A substantial amount of sleep-disrupting noise is a modern hospital is non-functional
From personal experience at a good cancer research hospital in a major city, one omnipresent alarm was a low battery warning... for a device that was plugged into mains power. No one knew how to turn it off or fix it.
[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/03/upshot/why-hospitals-shou...