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Filling hospitals with art reduces patient stress, anxiety and pain

designweek.co.uk

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Re: Filling hospitals with art reduces patient stress, anxiety and pain

#21

Post by arkades »

TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #19
arkades wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hospitals will have all of those things the moment people are willing to pay for them. Some hospitals have those now - for the sort of hospitals that predominantly serve patients with excellent insurance for high margin activities or who are paying cash. Eg, top tier specialty surgical centers and dedicated cancer centers. Most patients can’t afford their meds, or any type of hospital stay. They’re not paying a premi…

Most patients can't afford the organised health insurance scam industry. That's where most of the money goes. Ending that scam and asking patients to add an extra percent or two on their bills to pay for good food and a good environment would barely be a rounding error compared to the banditry that forces them to pay outrageous and unjustifiable fees for common meds and routine medical services - never mind specialis…

Most health insurance has a profit margin in the vicinity of 10%. They introduce many problems into the healthcare market, but if you think they’re the reason people can’t afford healthcare, you are mistaken.

I don’t mean to sound snarky here, but: if you believe you can boil down one of the most fractured, complex, and heavily regulated industries (really, set of inter-related industries) in the country to a single “that group of assholes over there cause all the problems” bulletpoint, you have missed 99% of the story.

Re: Filling hospitals with art reduces patient stress, anxiety and pain

#22

Post by hanniabu »

SamuelAdams wrote: post #10
covercash wrote: post #5

Having spent many months of my life in hospital rooms, even just a brightly colored paint job really makes things feel better. A lot of older hospitals have very sterile, bland colors on the floors and walls that would make even a healthy happy human feel depressed.

Reason for that though: it's easier to see blood and other fluids on a bland / white wall. Since fluids are a common way for infectious diseases to spread, they need to be cleaned thoroughly and completely. Source: wife is a nurse in the ER.

> they need to be cleaned thoroughly and completely

I don't know what hospitals you're going to but the ones in the US don't qualify that statement. Would I say they're filthy? No, but they certainly don't look like they're cleaned often, thoroughly, or completely.

Re: Filling hospitals with art reduces patient stress, anxiety and pain

#24

Post by gwillen »

jdietrich wrote: post #12

Before everyone piles in with their opinion, has anyone actually found the research mentioned in this article? I've searched quite thoroughly, but I can't find any sign that it has actually been published anywhere. I did find the paper from 2004 and was not impressed. http://www.publicartonline.org.uk/resources/research/documen...

Indeed not, and I am EXTREMELY skeptical of the claim that birth times are reduced TWO HOURS (!!!) by the addition of art. That's the kind of effect you see in papers that get retracted for outright fraud, let alone dubious and irreproducible studies.

Re: Filling hospitals with art reduces patient stress, anxiety and pain

#25

Post by covercash »

hanniabu wrote: post #22
SamuelAdams wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reason for that though: it's easier to see blood and other fluids on a bland / white wall. Since fluids are a common way for infectious diseases to spread, they need to be cleaned thoroughly and completely. Source: wife is a nurse in the ER.

> they need to be cleaned thoroughly and completely I don't know what hospitals you're going to but the ones in the US don't qualify that statement. Would I say they're filthy? No, but they certainly don't look like they're cleaned often, thoroughly, or completely.

Agreed, pretty much every hospital room I’ve been in has mystery stains on the ceiling. It’s so common that I’d point them out to my family members and we’d wonder out loud what the cause could have been.

Edit: there was even one room where I put on rubber gloves and used the disinfectant wipes from the janitor’s cart to clean dried blood from my IV pole and the bed rails.

Re: Filling hospitals with art reduces patient stress, anxiety and pain

#26

Post by Gpetrium »

kartan wrote: post #16

I have been working in some fast-growing software companies. Every few years, we change office and get one in a better place, with new furniture, fancier each time, tv monitor is everywhere, each wall had pictures and was colourful. I had to go to the hospital, nothing serious. It was so extremely sad to see 30-40 years old furniture, dark rooms that had never been re-painted, power outlets had been refurbished for t…

Healthcare has often outpaced GDP growth [1][2], putting a continuous strain on hospitals and other healthcare service providers. This in turn leads to less money being spent on non-essential parts, or at least the ones that are deemed to provide lower ROI for stakeholders (E.g. personnel, patients, family of patients, etc).

It is also worth noting that the trajectory that the company you work for in terms of office change is likely to be an outlier and (in)directly creates an skewed perspective of things, which when brought back to the average environment, creates a 'shock'.

[1] US: https://www.healthsystemtracker.org/chart-collection/u-s-spe... [2] CAD: https://secure.cihi.ca/free_products/NHEX-trends-narrative-r...

Re: Filling hospitals with art reduces patient stress, anxiety and pain

#27

Post by adamsea »

kingkawn wrote: post #18
kartan wrote: post #16

I have been working in some fast-growing software companies. Every few years, we change office and get one in a better place, with new furniture, fancier each time, tv monitor is everywhere, each wall had pictures and was colourful. I had to go to the hospital, nothing serious. It was so extremely sad to see 30-40 years old furniture, dark rooms that had never been re-painted, power outlets had been refurbished for t…

It seems likely that the emphasis on judging the aesthetic values of work spaces may itself be the issue, not that our hospitals and other public facing facilities are depressing.

The point of the article was that aesthetics have a quantifiable and measurable impact on health.

Re: Filling hospitals with art reduces patient stress, anxiety and pain

#29

Post by _carl_jung »

arkades wrote: post #9
d--b wrote: post #2

No shit Sherlock! You know what makes patients feel better too? Super large rooms with a lot of light, and designer furniture. Add quality meals and perhaps people will feel ok in hospitals...

Hospitals will have all of those things the moment people are willing to pay for them. Some hospitals have those now - for the sort of hospitals that predominantly serve patients with excellent insurance for high margin activities or who are paying cash. Eg, top tier specialty surgical centers and dedicated cancer centers. Most patients can’t afford their meds, or any type of hospital stay. They’re not paying a premi…

Interestingly, this comment can be read as either pro-socialist or pro-free-market. In either case, it's plainly true. The cost has to be covered _somehow_. We should find a way to make it happen.

Re: Filling hospitals with art reduces patient stress, anxiety and pain

#30

Post by davidw »

kartan wrote: post #16

I have been working in some fast-growing software companies. Every few years, we change office and get one in a better place, with new furniture, fancier each time, tv monitor is everywhere, each wall had pictures and was colourful. I had to go to the hospital, nothing serious. It was so extremely sad to see 30-40 years old furniture, dark rooms that had never been re-painted, power outlets had been refurbished for t…

> I know that there are countries where it is worse, I am happy that everyone in the country had free health care. But, it could be much better.

Doctor's offices in the US look nicer than those in Italy, where I lived for a number of years. But ultimately, patients pay for that, and overall the US health care system is reaaaallllly expensive.

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