Boston College nursing students present quality improvement project on 2 South

Recently, a group of five nursing students from Boston College presented their quality improvement project “Music Therapy” to Brigham and Women’s Faulkner Hospital’s Department of Psychiatry staff.

The goal of the project was to evaluate the current music therapy program offered on 2 South, the hospital’s inpatient psychiatric unit, and offer suggestions for enhancing the program.

“The students’ research certainly reinforces just how beneficial music therapy programs can be for our patients,” says Chief of Psychiatry Dr. John Fromson. “In their work, they reviewed our music therapy offerings as well as those of nearby hospitals and made suggestions for increasing our offerings. They also suggested offering calming music in the sensory room, which is a very interesting idea.”

To come to their conclusions, the students asked patients on the unit how they generally utilize music and gathered information about patient preferences to incorporate music once admitted to the unit. Dr. Fromson explains, “Our patients expressed the most interest in listening to music in their room or in the unit’s sensory room. As a result of this project, individual wireless headphones have been made available to patients and a remote speaker system is being installed in the sensory room. These resources will supplement the beneficial music therapy and drumming groups already offered on 2 South.”