Mandy Kachur, Soundscape Engineering LLC partner and Principal Acoustical Consultant, was an invited speaker at the National Academy of Engineering’s international symposium series Japan-America Frontiers of Engineering, which took place earlier this year in Tokyo.

This series of lectures with poster sessions encourages information exchange across engineering disciplines for engineers in the first half of their careers. Her presentation titled “Managing Noise in Healthcare Environments to Improve Patient Outcomes” addressed the latest additions to the Facilities Guidelines Institute’s (FGI) Guidelines for Design and Construction of Hospitals and Outpatient Facilities, alarm fatigue and case studies of facility construction and operational procedures to provide healing environments for patients and reduced stress for staff.

 

She was selected as one of two speakers from the United States to speak on noise control in healthcare facilities because of her ongoing involvement in the FGI Guidelines development, including the Rothschild Elder Task Force initiative to tailor the 2018 Guidelines for Design and Construction of Residential Health, Care and Support Facilities to the predominantly hearing-impaired population of nursing homes and assisted living facilities and the American Society for Healthcare (ASHE) sponsored initiative championed by The Center for Health Design (CHD) to develop a facilities Safety Risk Assessment available to project teams for the purpose of evaluating and improving healthcare facilities.