The prototype hospital room inside Sutter Health’s innovation center in San Francisco looks nondescript to the casual observer: it has a bed, IV drip and window, not unlike countless hospital rooms across the country.
But a closer look reveals subtle features that Sutter leaders hope will one day become part of hospital rooms of the future, helping patients sleep better — an elusive goal in the noisy, hectic hospital environment.
There are red lights overhead, designed for nighttime use so they don’t disturb the patient’s natural circadian rhythm the way standard blue and white lights do. For rooms without an exterior window, a digital “window” displays images of the outdoors that sync with natural light — sunlight during the day and dark sky and stars at night — to help orient patients so they’re more primed to stay awake during the day and sleep at night. Sutter also hopes to add sound-monitoring devices in the hallway to alert staff if noise levels exceed a certain decibel.
These are some of the sleep-friendly technologies that Sutter is looking to incorporate as it builds two new hospitals in Santa Clara and Emeryville, which are slated to open around 2030 and 2031, and as it remodels its CPMC hospitals in San Francisco. Some features could be implemented as soon as next year…