Towards a quieter Neonatal Intensive Care Unit: Current approaches and design opportunities

Recent studies show that the well-being of patients and the performance of healthcare professionals in modern neonatal intensive care units (NICUs) are severely affected by the amount of auditory alarms and sound nuisance. This paper presents a semi-systematic review on the topic of environmental sound in the NICU, where current themes, insights, and limitations are highlighted. Furthermore, it outlines the results of an observation of the NICU environment and an interview with nurses at Erasmus Medical Center, in order to understand the users, their context, and the technology that can enable design interventions. The insights gathered from the literature and the users, together with a technology search, lead to potential design opportunities to be developed further. Based on these, we propose a technological solution towards a healthy sound environment in the NICU.