Emily Dunn, WELL AP, Prosci | Director of Workplace Strategy, EUA
When we think about designing healthcare environments, we tend to center the conversation around patients and visitors. That’s important—but it’s not the full picture.
Healthcare facilities are workplaces. They’re dynamic, high-pressure environments where caregivers spend long hours navigating urgent situations. Nurses, physicians, and support staff are the backbone of the system. And yet, their well-being is sometimes an afterthought in healthcare facility design.
While hospitals are often the most visible example, these issues apply across a range of healthcare delivery environments—from inpatient wings and emergency departments to outpatient clinics and specialty care centers. In each of these spaces, care providers face intense demands that make designing for staff wellness more than a nice-to-have—it’s essential.
At EUA, we’re seeing more organizations recognize that investment in the experience of their staff and the environments where they work pays dividends in performance, satisfaction and retention. One of the most underperforming, yet impactful, elements of that environment? Acoustics.
Why Sound Matters in Healthcare Workplaces
Many healthcare settings, especially inpatient and high-acuity environments, are inherently noisy places. Alarms, intercoms, rolling carts, overhead pages, conversations in corridors. It adds up to a constant stream of sensory input. Much of that sound has a clear purpose: alerts, notifications, and communication tied to patient care. But when those sounds become overwhelming or unmanaged, they become noise—unwanted sound that can increase stress and decrease performance.
We often talk about how these acoustical environments affect patients. However, the same stressors apply to staff often more acutely, as they experience them hour after hour, shift after shift.
Studies have linked excessive workplace noise to increased stress, fatigue, cognitive overload and even medical errors. In healthcare, where the stakes are high, those impacts carry real consequences, not just for staff well-being, but for patient safety.
The Need for Quiet
What’s often missing from healthcare environments is simple: quiet.
Quiet isn’t just the absence of sound—it’s the ability to step away from the chaos. It enables focus during critical tasks. It may support acoustical privacy, particularly in spaces where sensitive information is shared. And, when it comes to those working in noisy environments, quiet creates opportunities for meaningful respite.
In typical office settings, we’ve grown accustomed to carving out quiet zones, enclosed meeting rooms, or focus pods, even shared library spaces. In many healthcare facilities, particularly inpatient environments, those options are far more limited. Space constraints, tight budgets, and fast timelines often mean staff respite areas are the first to be cut from the program.
But that decision comes at a cost. When staff have no place to recharge—especially during long or overnight shifts—the physical and emotional toll builds quickly. Healthcare providers who experience stress related to their workplace demonstrate lower levels of job satisfaction and higher turnover intention.
Designing with Acoustics in Mind
The good news is that supporting staff and their acoustical needs doesn’t always require a major overhaul. There are small, strategic interventions that can make a big difference:
- Make quiet spaces a priority, not a luxury. Dedicate enclosed, acoustically isolated wellness rooms near staff work zones. These can be compact but effective. Bonus points if they include access to daylight or exterior views, as these help with stress reduction as well.
- Design for visual connection, not acoustical intrusion. In high-acuity areas, consider glazed partitions or windows into adjacent spaces. Seeing the source of a sound can reduce the stress response, even if the sound is still present.
- Balance visibility and privacy. Transparency in design shouldn’t come at the expense of sound control. Use finishes and layout strategies that dampen noise while maintaining situational awareness.
- Account for HIPAA requirements. Acoustic privacy is also a compliance issue. Design spaces where staff can communicate about patient care without the risk of being overheard by outside parties.
As the acoustical experience and the well-being of occupants are important in all environments, we work to regularly integrate these considerations into both workplace and healthcare projects.
Building a Better Culture Through Acoustics
Supporting healthcare staff isn’t just about wellness rooms or sound-absorbing finishes. It’s about signaling that we value their experience and well-being and want to invest in their success.
A focus on the caregiver in a space and working to create a more supportive experience for them in the design process builds culture and community within the workplace. It helps attract and retain top talent in a highly competitive hiring environment. And it contributes to stronger, more sustainable care delivery systems.
We’ve seen this approach work across markets and environments where people regularly operate under pressure and need space to recalibrate.
For instance, many call centers now include wellness rooms for employees who manage emotionally charged conversations. When someone supports callers through personal loss, financial distress, or crises, it’s not sustainable—or healthy—to jump from one call to the next without pause. Giving employees the option (and a space) to step away for a few minutes allows them to process, recover, and return to their work with a clearer head and renewed empathy. That sense of empathy is essential to doing the job well, and it’s precisely the kind of quality we should be protecting through thoughtful workplace design.
We also see this in academic medical centers and other high-acuity care environments, where students and residents often have access to small, quiet spaces near clinical areas. These rooms offer a moment of privacy after a difficult encounter or a misstep in care—opportunities to regroup, reflect, and regain composure before re-entering a high-stakes environment. These moments are critical not only for mental health but for learning. By normalizing the need for pause, we build emotional resilience and reinforce a culture of support and accountability.
These examples highlight what’s possible when we intentionally design for staff experience. They remind us that high performance and well-being aren’t at odds—they’re interdependent.
Let’s Keep the Conversation Going
We know healthcare environments will always be complex. But that doesn’t mean they can’t be restorative for everyone inside them.
Let’s design workplaces where caregivers can thrive. Let’s put acoustics higher on the priority list.
Emily Dunn, WELL AP, Prosci, is the director of workplace strategy at EUA. She is a member of the WELL Sound Concept Advisory.
