HUSH Curtain In the News & Media

(2021) Construction Specialties - Spotlight on HUSH Curtain

(2020) How does HUSH Curtain® measure up in an Acoustic Performance Assessment*?

“The increased sound absorption [and blocking] from the HUSH Curtain will make each bay quieter even when there is a significant amount of activity from nurses, patients, equipment/activities, and families. This amount of sound absorption makes a space quieter and more intimate and makes sound very directional, which means nurses can clearly locate the source of crying and alarms.”

In Summary: The HUSH Curtain reduce the perception of intrusive noise by 35% to 50% compared to a standard cloth curtain.

*In December 2020, the PACU at Monroe Carell Jr. Children's Hospital at Vanderbilt, Nashville, Tennessee, was the subject of this assessment performed by Tenor, an independent engineering group specializing in acoustic design and testing.

construction specialties’ hush curtain is just what the doctor ordered

Installing the HUSH Curtain system is a relatively simple change facilities can make to promote a quiet and healing environment, especially in their PACU, NICU, pre- and post-op, ER, and patient rooms. Reducing unnecessary noise can improve a patient’s perception of their environment, which, in turn, may improve HCAHPS (Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems) satisfaction scores. The HUSH Curtain is HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act) compliant under the standard privacy rule that encourages the promotion of quieter staff/patient communications, which better ensures a patient’s privacy. 

“Tested by third-party scientists, the HUSH Curtain, when installed, showed a seventy percent improvement in reverberation time,” said Jason Ellis, General Manager at Construction Specialties. “The HUSH Curtain provides privacy by incorporating proprietary acoustical panels that help absorb sound. This patented design softens and muffles noise by slowing the reflective velocity within a space.”

HUSH Curtains at northeast methodist hospital

Nurses are seen praying during the COVID-19 crisis before each shift.

Construction Specialties Announces Partnership with Chinook Acoustics to Manufacture and Distribute the HUSH Curtain®

The HUSH Curtain — a patented privacy curtain system engineered to promote a quieter environment for healing and recovery in healthcare centers — will be unveiled to architects and designers

(LEBANON, NJ) — May 5, 2020 — Construction Specialties (CS), a leading manufacturer of commercial building products, has partnered with Chinook Acoustics to manufacture and distribute the HUSH Curtain® — a patented privacy curtain designed with pockets that hold acoustical panels to provide sound absorption and promote healthy recovery environments.

Chinook Acoustics is prevalent in facility management sales, having more than 350 healthcare and clinical projects across the nation. The new partnership with Construction Specialties will open doors to architects and designers working on new healthcare facility construction to help improve patient privacy.

“We’re beginning a process of turning our marketing system to a multi-pronged strategy,” said Ben Forrest, CEO of Chinook Acoustics and inventor of the HUSH Curtain. “Chinook brings to the partnership the clinical bottom-up part of the market, while CS educates the architectural side from the top down.”

The partnership comes at a time when the world is focused on safety and resiliency. CS partnering with Chinook Acoustics will help to close the gap between the reality of facilities needing to satisfy privacy laws and providing patients with quieter healing environments.

“There are 7,500 hospitals in the US, and there is about an equal number of clinics, and each one of them has a space someplace in it that can benefit from having the HUSH Curtain installed,” said Jason Ellis, General Manager at Construction Specialties. “Leveraging each other’s market holds will help bring this important technology to the ever-growing safety-conscious world while providing an aesthetic appeal to architects and designers.”

noise & the birth of hush curtain

“The results at Alvarado were striking. A retained acoustic engineer confirmed a 75 percent reduction in reverberation and 30 percent reduction in ambient noise. This dramatic reduction in noise enhanced the quality of care — reducing stress among staff and patients and promoting overall healing. The solution was, and remains, groundbreaking in hospital environments.”

former navy pilot found solution to hospital room noise, privacy

Ben Forrest came up with a design for his “HUSH Curtain” in 2010 when a California hospital approached him to come up with a solution for noise problems in their emergency room.