Jo M. Solet, Cambridge, Boston Globe, February 28, 2010 As a sleep researcher who has been studying noise in health care facilities, I would urge hospital decision makers and health technology innovators to find a better solution to hospital alarm errors than turning up the volume on all the alarms (“MGH death spurs review of patient monitors,’’ Page A1, February 21). When alarms are not heard, a better solution may be to lower the background noise levels. Noise in health care facilities has increased by multiples in past decades, and it has a negative effect on health in several ways, not only through missed alarms. These include increased stress and disrupted sleep for patients, lost privacy, communication errors, and clinician burn-out. National surveys in which patients assessed hospitals have shown that room noise levels were rated worse than other quality-of-care indicators. Many former patients strongly confirm this perception. With rising health care costs, and a wave of aging baby boomers on the horizon, improving our environments of care is a wise priority. As an important step in recognizing the need to control hospital noise, minimum acoustic standards have been established in the 2010 edition of the “Guidelines for the Design and Construction of Health Care Facilities.’’ The writer is a member of the Division of Sleep Medicine at Harvard Medical School. © Copyright 2010 The New York Times Company