Implementation of Daily Quiet Time on a Postpartum Unit

Abstract

BACKGROUND: A lack of quiet time during their hospital stay can have multiple deleterious effects on patients. Studies have shown that patients are exposed to multiple interruptions by hospital staff and louder than recommended noise levels while they are admitted in the hospital. LOCAL PROBLEM: The unit leaders at one local community hospital in Maryland noticed that a lack of quiet time was a daily problem on their unit. INTERVENTION: The purpose of this project was to implement and evaluate the effectiveness of daily quiet time on a postpartum unit at a community hospital in Maryland. In this quality improvement project, daily quiet time was implemented during the hours of 1:30pm to 3:00pm. Lights on the unit were dimmed. Nurses and other staff stayed out of patient rooms unless it was medically necessary or by patient request. Data collection occurred from October 2018 to November 2018 and included observing and recording the number of times staff entered a patient room and timing how long they were in the room. RESULTS: Pre-implementation data collection occurred on four days and post-implementation data collection occurred on nine days. On average, staff interruptions to patient rooms were 5.18 pre-implementation and 1.30 post-implementation per 90 minutes (P < 0.001). On average, interruptions in patient rooms by staff lasted 4.09 minutes pre-implementation and 3.66 minutes post-implementation. CONCLUSIONS: Due to the overwhelming acceptance of this quality improvement project by the postpartum staff as well as other departments in the hospital and the observed decrease in staff interruptions to patient rooms, daily quiet time is a sustained intervention that has become part of the standard workflow on the postpartum unit at a local community hospital.