The work of FGI and Quiet Healthcare is continuous and dynamic, modeled on a Continuous Improvement Process. The process is punctuated every four years by the publication of updated FGI Guidelines. The Guidelines are distributed to regulatory agencies across the USA (44 states adopt the Guidelines as state building codes; the remaining states use the Guidelines to draft their own codes and standards), as well as to practitioners and regulators in 87 countries, and to other national and international standard-setting groups like the U.S. Green Building Council’s “LEED for Healthcare,” the International Code Council, ASHRAE, and others.

The most recent edition of the FGI Guidelines was published in early 2018 and consists of ~900 pages, divided into three volumes: one volume each for hospitals, outpatient facilities, and residential care. The next edition of all three volumes of the FGI Guidelines will be published in 2022.

FGI’s Continuous Improvement Process provides Quiet Healthcare with unique and frequent access to clinical settings and healthcare professionals as well as unprecedented opportunities to organize and conduct clinically-based, trans-disciplinary research. This work serves as the foundation for developing evidence-based best practices about the effects of sound, vibration, privacy and noise on patients and their families as well as doctors, nurses and all types of health care providers from across America’s economic and geographic landscape. This trans-disciplinary, national focus anchored in clinical settings has helped restore the health effects of noise, sound and vibration to the public health agenda in the USA.