Occasionally we’ve been asked by our health care clients to review the noise levels within their facility. In the medical setting, it’s very important to meet HIPAA requirements and avoid noise transmission between rooms and within the clinic environment. This particularly project related to noise transmission between the control room and the bedrooms of a sleep lab.
During field investigation, we identified several potential causes for the noise issues:
- Noise from air leakage at the utility shaft door.
- Sound transmission between the technician station and the bedrooms.
- Sound transmission between adjacent bedrooms.
- Noise from toilets flushing and pipes banging.
- Noise from people walking and talking in the corridor behind the sleep lab.
To determine the NIC ratings of the tested partitions, airborne sound tests were performed. The measurements followed the procedures of ASTM E-336. High level broadband noise was generated in the source rooms using a Bruel & Kjaer Sound Source and measured over 1/3-octave bands from 125 to 4,000 Hz using a Larson Davis Real Time Analyzer.
The resulting noise reduction data were used to calculate the NIC ratings as per the procedures of ASTM E-413. Based on this information, we provided the client with an authoritative report to document our findings along with recommendations for correction.