|
Challenges
Mental
Health centers have major concerns with oral privacy
issues, due in part to HIPAA regulations. The
new Grant Mental Healthcare facility was not achieving
the optimum acoustical environment for speech privacy,
and we were hired to solve the problem of sound
transmission between conference rooms and small
private offices. We needed to design our recommendations
to work with the existing facility, and keep within
the budget. The facility was already in use
when we were called in to help, and we took extra
care not to disturb the patients and doctors while
conducting our analysis and implementing our recommendations.
|
|
Solutions
We
conducted assessments of problem areas and designed
interior acoustical treatments, took measurements
of existing noise levels, and made our recommendations
based on budget, our design criteria, and the structure
of the building. Our recommendations included
extending the walls to the ceiling structure, building
plenums around mechanical equipment, applying specific
treatments to the ceilings, and designing curtain
walls and walls to achieve the design criteria.
An analysis of the mechanical
system was conducted, and recommendations were designed
to raise
background noise for the purpose of masking speech
for sound privacy requirements.
|
