The hospital I work at was looking at cost saving measures. Someone realized we were paying $65k a year in art insurance. Generous people would loan the art to the hospital on the condition that the hospital would insure it. When times were good, the hospital had no issue paying for the insurance, but once we had to cut costs, it became clear we couldn't be a free art storage facility for citizens. They inventoried everything, returned pieces that they no longer felt like insuring.
Filling hospitals with art reduces patient stress, anxiety and pain
31–40 of 148 posts
Re: Filling hospitals with art reduces patient stress, anxiety and pain
#32Having 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.
ER makes up a small portion of hospitals though.
Re: Filling hospitals with art reduces patient stress, anxiety and pain
#33The hospital I work at was looking at cost saving measures. Someone realized we were paying $65k a year in art insurance. Generous people would loan the art to the hospital on the condition that the hospital would insure it. When times were good, the hospital had no issue paying for the insurance, but once we had to cut costs, it became clear we couldn't be a free art storage facility for citizens. They inventoried e…
That does sound like a pretty insane recurring cost. Doesn't seem like there's any need for really valuable art that requires insurance when murals, photos and reproductions of the same nice art would do it. Hopefully they just replaced that all with something much cheaper.
Re: Filling hospitals with art reduces patient stress, anxiety and pain
#34Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
> 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.
People see a lot of money flowing into insurers and hear about large profit numbers. That makes it feel like they're the obvious problem.
Re: Filling hospitals with art reduces patient stress, anxiety and pain
#35I 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…
The Disneyland-like software companies you describe are that way because they must signal success, coolness, etc in order to attract employees to hire, investors to write checks, customers to sign up, etc. In another word, it’s a cost of doing business.
Hospitals (I’m assuming you’re describing public European hospitals) aren’t subject to those pressures - instead, they have to fight for the tiniest bit of budget to replace/fix things that should have been replaced years ago, or to hire enough staff.
If you go to fancy private American hospitals, you will also find that they have the latest TVs/trendy furniture/etc, because they have to signal to wealthy people that they are worth giving their money to.
When you look at how inflated costs are for the latter, I’m not sure it’s a desirable thing.
Re: Filling hospitals with art reduces patient stress, anxiety and pain
#36We've realized that years ago..that's why we launched: https://POPteam.io
There is no better feeling than seeing all those boring spiritually sterile hallways magically transform into a kaleidoscope of humanity.
Re: Filling hospitals with art reduces patient stress, anxiety and pain
#37The hospital I work at was looking at cost saving measures. Someone realized we were paying $65k a year in art insurance. Generous people would loan the art to the hospital on the condition that the hospital would insure it. When times were good, the hospital had no issue paying for the insurance, but once we had to cut costs, it became clear we couldn't be a free art storage facility for citizens. They inventoried e…
That does sound like a pretty insane recurring cost. Doesn't seem like there's any need for really valuable art that requires insurance when murals, photos and reproductions of the same nice art would do it. Hopefully they just replaced that all with something much cheaper.
I think you could deduce that no pieces would be of substantial value. No one would loan a valuable piece to a hospital knowing that it's likely going to be put in a public hallway and potentially touched or damaged many times a day.
Re: Filling hospitals with art reduces patient stress, anxiety and pain
#38Articles like this are interesting when compared to what the wealthy are doing with the world’s most inspiring art: keeping them locked away in port boxes to function as wealth management assets.
You would think we could find a way to improve the situation.
Re: Filling hospitals with art reduces patient stress, anxiety and pain
#39When not in hospital, we suggest people need mental stimulation, exercise, good food and daylight to stay healthy and sane. None of these things are possible when you're convalescing.
Don't get me wrong, I'm _very_ thankful for the fact I still have both my legs, but staying sane is extremely difficult.
Half of the bays on my ward literally had no windows. There were people around me that hadn't seen daylight in over a month. There wasn't any publicly accessible free WiFi, the TVs were costing over £40/week. There's no library, no social spaces and absolutely nothing to do. Even the staff are too busy to have a conversation with. You had two meals served 6 hours apart. It wasn't awful but certainly wasn't great. Even buying and eating a lot of my own food left me loosing a tonne of weight. And not a single accessible gym or swimming pool even close. Being able to get healthy and fit seems like a no-brainer.
Don't get me wrong, there's a lot of good, but I find it impossible to believe this isn't causing more problems and actually increasing recovery times costing them more money over-all.
Re: Filling hospitals with art reduces patient stress, anxiety and pain
#40Before 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.
I think this is the paper on the birth time.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S003039921...