With fluorescent lighting and the swirling chatter of medical noise, children's hospitals are sometimes not the most conducive environments for healthy sleeping patterns. With research continuing to highlight the health benefits of good sleep, some children's hospitals are changing the way they do business at night, according to NPR.
While children's hospitals are not held to the same standards of patient satisfaction as other facilities, the interest in creating a satisfactory healthcare experience for both patients and their families is growing among physicians at children's hospitals. Some physicians note that better sleep means more efficacious care.
Sapna Kudchadkar, MD, an assistant professor of anesthesiology, critical care and pediatrics at Johns Hopkins Children's Center in Baltimore, launched an initiative to improve sleep for patients in the pediatric intensive care unit. At Hopkins, blinds are drawn at 8 p.m. and in some rooms many alerts no longer trigger loud beeping, instead the notifications go directly to the nurse's phone.
Dr. Kudchadkar told NPR, "If we're going to try to heal kids, we need to try to have them do the one thing that's so important for their brain development. And that's optimizing their sleep." She also said children who are not disrupted in the middle of the evening don't require as much sedation or anesthesia.
Some challenges push back against these types of strategies to improve sleep. Sick children need to be woken more often at night — certain tests and medications can't wait. Also, it can be difficult to shift the culture of the nighttime workplace to one of considerate quiet.
Myke Federman, MD, a critical care pediatrician who started a sleep initiative at Mattel Children's Hospital UCLA in Los Angeles, told NPR regarding workplace changes, "For some people, the night is no different than the day — that's when they work."
Dr. Kudchadkar reported that while changes in the ICU haven't been easy, they are taking hold. She said, "The bottom line is, 'How do you create a peaceful, healing environment?'...we're getting there."
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