Canberra Hospital will soon use the Yacker Tracker to monitor noise levels in parts of the hospital to help patients get a good night’s sleep. Photo: Jay Cronan
Patients lose two hours of sleep at Canberra Hospital each night as a result of higher than recommended sound, with noisy nurses mostly to blame, an internal review has found.
The nation’s first hospital-wide review of patients’ sleeping habits found only one-quarter reported a good quality snooze, which the report author warned meant slower recovery times and longer stays.
Researcher Lori Delaney said the six-month study, set to bring about a range of changed practices, found overnight patients slept for an average of 5.3 hours at the capital’s largest hospital, 1.8 hours less than at home.
“When you bring sleep down to that short quantity of time, there’s a lot of problems that come with that – including confusion, delirium and a lot of other physiological problems – that effectively delay their recovery, it means they end up in hospital for longer,” Ms Delaney said.