September 14, 2015—Audio monitoring systems from ETC (Electronic Theatre Controls) were recently selected to help keep noise levels down for infants receiving intensive care in Wisconsin. Children’s Hospital of Wisconsin in Wauwatosa is consistently ranked as one of the best children’s hospitals in the United States, and contains the first and largest Level IV Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) in the state, says ETC.
The hospital, which provides state-of-the-art care for more than 700 infants each year with all types of diagnoses, called on ETC to contribute to its mission of supporting shorter stays and a better quality of life for its young patients.
During the first phase of its NICU transformation, private patient rooms were designed to address the unique developmental needs of its tiniest patients, while a second redesign and expansion phase is scheduled to open in late 2016.
ETC dealer DesignLab helped Children’s Hospital equip 26 of 59 NICU rooms with a state-of-the-art audio-monitoring system. Premature infants are in a rapid state of development and are very sensitive to noise, which can greatly affect recovery time within a hospital setting, points out the company.
“Previously we only relied on ourselves to monitor the noise levels. We would do intermittent checks with a decibel reader, but we needed something that could remind us of noise levels continuously,” Grippe said. He said the hospital needed a simple, maintenance-free system to alert its staff to critical noise levels.
Children’s Hospital worked with DesignLab to install two ETC Unison Mosaic Show Controllers and 13 Mosaic Remote Audio Devices with several Mosaic LED Drivers at the helm.
Doug MacDonald, systems group manager at DesignLab, says he chose Mosaic products because he likes the way they can be easily used in stand-alone installations:
I have used most of the alternatives on the market and it’s clear to me that Mosaic is top of the class in its field. The wide variety of inputs and outputs makes it easy to adapt the controllers to many needs, whether it’s audio, DALI, contact closure, analog inputs, DMX, serial DVI or Ethernet. It’s hard to imagine a type of sensor or other system we might need to interface with that Mosaic could not handle.
Mosaic Show Controllers can reportedly run sophisticated triggers and light cues without the need for complex programming, making it an easy “instant-on” compact solution for all types of venues. With 26 individual audio inputs, MacDonald said “clean and simple” programming will help handle the over 100 audio triggers per second when the rooms are all occupied.
Small LED lights embedded within the walls of each of the 26 rooms change color to indicate rising noise levels. When audio levels reach 55 dB, the LEDs turn amber, and when noise reaches a critical level of 65 dB, they turn bright red. They even blink if the room is too noisy for too long.
The technology is expected to promote better outcomes for the newborns, which can lead to shorter hospital stays.
