How noisy is your hospital at night? See where Philly-area hospitals rank.

About half of patients think their Philadelphia-area hospitals are quiet at night, a federal survey shows.

Patients at hospitals in the region rated the area around their rooms as “always” quiet at night 54% of the time. Nationally, patients said the hospital was quiet throughout their stay 62% of the time.

Maintaining quiet can be a challenge for hospitals, which are bustling environments with many people and machines. Rest is an important component to healing, research shows, so hospitals are investing money to become more quiet.

For example, when Penn Medicine opened its $1.6 billion Pavilion at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania in 2021, the architectural design prioritized creating noise-reducing areas away from patient rooms, where staff can have conversations and make phone calls. They also gave care teams access to a patient’s medications from the hallway, trying to avoid waking people up during routine checks.

“It’s all about minimizing noise, increasing comfort, and providing a quiet environment to reduce disruptions and promote sleep,” said Kathryn Gallagher, a nurse who helped design the pavilion.

The issue concerns health regulators, too. In a federal survey, patients were asked to answer the question: During this hospital stay, how often was the area around your room quiet at night? The answer choices were “always quiet,” “usually quiet,” and “sometimes” or “never” quiet.

Philly’s three quietest general hospitals at night: Inspira Medical Center in Elmer, N.J. (69%), Penn’s Chester County Hospital (64%), and Main Line Health’s Bryn Mawr Hospital (62%).

Penn’s Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, home of the pavilion, ranked fifth in the region for quietness, matching the national average with 60% of patients calling it always quiet. Before the pavilion opened (and pre-pandemic), only 43% of patients gave Penn’s flagship hospital top ratings for quietness, comparing the most recent survey results to the same time period in 2018 and 2019.

The loudest acute-care hospital in the region: Riddle Hospital, a Main Line Health hospital in Delaware County. More than a quarter of patients in the survey rated the area around their room at night as “sometimes” or “never” quiet.

Jefferson Health’s Abington Hospital and Virtua Mount Holly Hospital also ranked among the region’s least quiet, with the fewest patients saying they were “always” quiet.

Here’s a look at how patients ranked the noise level around their room at night in 40 Philly-area hospitals, according to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services’ most recent update of the Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems.

The data was collected from more than 4,000 hospitals across the nation between July 2022 and June 2023.