Stress Reduction for Frontline Workers

Wellstar Health System in Atlanta, like hospitals across this country, is facing an urgent problem with burnout among their doctors and nurses. Wellstar has responded by creating wellness rooms in all their hospitals where frontline health workers can escape and de-stress in a private space equipped with Spatial.

This installation by Applied Global Technologies (AGT) was part of a larger project for Atlanta-based Wellstar Health System, in partnership with Spatial and HealthTunes, to install 16 Wellness Rooms across Wellstar’s local-area hospitals and health parks in collaboration with Catalyst by Wellstar. The partnership focused on designing private spaces that featured immersive sound environments to provide a respite for frontline healthcare workers in the hospital setting, with the purpose of helping reduce the stress and anxiety brought on by the overwhelming COVID-19 health crisis.

Spatial meets key demands of medicine for therapeutic environments.

Spatial’s immersive audio platform combined with HealthTunes evidence-based ‘MusicMedicine’ allows nurses, doctors, and other healthcare professionals to choose a soundscape tailored to their evolving needs. transported away from the pressure of the hospital. Soundscapes are enhanced with the option of Auditory Beat Stimulation – a research-based approach that uses low frequency pulses to entrain relaxed brain states and relax the parasympathetic nervous system.

Since the Wellstar Wellness Rooms opened in January 2022, nearly 5,000 team members have used them, with 95% reporting a positive mental impact. The self-reported mental state also increased by over 28%. During this time, 30,750 hours of soundscapes were played – the equivalent of 3.5 years – and 84% of users said they were highly likely to recommend the room to a colleague.

The installation at Wellstar Kennestone Hospital in Marietta, Ga., included a mix of 32 speakers and subwoofers across a primary shared wellness room and three private wellness rooms to provide hospital employees with various soothing AI-driven, non-looping environmental soundscapes they could choose from via a touchscreen interface to help them escape, relax, destress and even process difficult experiences such as losing a patient.