HEALING ARCHITECTURE: HOSPITAL DESIGN AND

PATIENT OUTCOMES

Healthcare facilities are designed to

enhance a hospital staff’s ability to
provide high-quality care and
efficiency. Yet the power of the
architecture itself to impact a
patient’s recovery time and the
overall effectiveness of a facility
tends to be overlooked.

The new term “healing architecture” indicates that the built environment has the ability to
impact patients’ health and psychological well-being. Features such as bright rooms, access
to natural daylight, big windows, local plant life and outdoor views can improve the healing
process by giving patients a psychological and physical lift.

What is healing architecture or healing environments?

Healing architecture for healthcare facilities describes a physical setting that supports
patients and families through the stresses that develop as a result of illness, hospitalization,
medical visits, the healing process or bereavement. The concept implies that the physical
healthcare environment can make a difference in how quickly patients recover or adapt to
specific acute and chronic conditions.

The goal of healing architecture

The goal of all healing environments is to engage patients in the process of self-healing and
recovery. As a result, these spaces are designed to be nurturing and therapeutic to
reduce patient and family stress. In order to promote recovery, healing architecture aims
to:

 Eliminate environmental stressors, such as noise, lack of privacy, poor air quality
and glare.
 Connect patients to nature by providing outdoor views and other natural features,
including interior gardens and water elements.
 Enhance the patient’s feeling of being in control by offering options and choices –
these may include privacy versus socialization, lighting level, type of music and quiet
versus active waiting areas.
  Encourage opportunities for social support, such as providing appropriate seating in
patient rooms, privacy for small groups and overnight accommodations in patient
rooms.
 Provide positive distractions, such as interactive art, fireplaces, aquariums, internet
connection, music, or soothing video or light installations suited to the healthcare
setting.
 Inspire feelings of peace, hope, reflection and spiritual connection.

Benefits of healing architecture

Recent examples have shown how thoughtful architecture and design focused on
promoting healing can have a measurable impact on patient recovery, including shorter
hospital stays, fewer infections contracted in the hospital and reduced pain.

Research by Dr. Roger Ulrich, a professor of architecture at the Center for Healthcare
Building Research at Chalmers University of Technology in Sweden, found that gallbladder
surgery patients assigned to a room with a window view of a natural setting had shorter
postoperative hospital stays as compared to patients in similar rooms with windows facing
a brick building wall. Similar research by the Department of Neuropsychiatric Sciences at
the University of Milan found that patients with bipolar disorder assigned to brighter, east-
facing rooms with morning sunlight had hospital stays nearly four days shorter than those
with west-facing rooms.

According to a study by the Environmental Design Research Association, during the weeks
that posters of realistic nature scenes were hung in the multipurpose lounge of an acute
psychiatric clinic, the administration of “as-needed” injections to manage patients who
exhibit “aggressive and agitated” behavior was 70 percent lower than when the walls were
blank. These results also apply and are even improved when patients are in contact with
actual views of nature.

Healing architecture can also encompass strategies intended to reduce the spread of
infection. A recent trend in the healthcare industry is to grade hospitals based on the
likelihood of a patient incurring an infection in the facility that is different from the medical
issue for which the patient was admitted. According to The Leapfrog Group, an
independent nonprofit committed to pursuing quality, safety and transparency in the U.S.
healthcare system, 1 out of every 25 patients develops an infection while in a hospital.

Holistic planning and design of healing environments

Healing architecture starts with a focus on improving the patient experience and outcome.
In order to bring healing architecture to life in healthcare facilities, it’s important to adopt
a holistic planning approach that includes input and feedback from the end users in
addition to the design, construction and operations teams.

At Karolinska University Hospital in Sweden, an architect redesigned the neonatal ICU to

accommodate a strategic shift in care protocol. Only after working alongside the daily staff
to understand the needs the new protocol would require was he able to design a new
hospital unit that would lead to improved results. After implementation, the hospital
reported shorter hospital stays – including stays 10 days shorter for the most premature
infants – lower morbidity rates, fewer infants requiring ventilator assistance and improved
long-term mental and physical prospects.

Healing architecture and SageGlass

By controlling sunlight to optimize daylight, dynamic glass eliminates glare, one of the
environmental stressors that healing architecture aims to remove. In doing so, the indoor
environment becomes more comfortable for patients, visitors and hospital employees
alike. With SageGlass dynamic glass, shades or blinds are not required to eliminate the
sun’s glare, which gives patients and their families unobstructed views of the outdoors and
comfortable levels of natural light all at the same time. According to several studies, views
of the natural world have been linked to faster patient recovery rates, decreased
dependence on medication and improved emotional wellness.

According to the session “Natural Light for All: An Effort to Bring Daylight and Views to
Healthcare,” presented by architects and design experts at Greenbuild 2012, natural
daylight has been proven to have a direct and positive biological impact by helping to
modulate a patient’s circadian rhythm to improve alertness and reduce depression.
Daylight also promotes the production of vitamin D, which supports heart health and bone
growth.

SageGlass is in the process of conducting research at a hospital in Philadelphia,

Pennsylvania, to provide additional insight into how access to natural daylighting via
dynamic glass can improve the patient experience as compared to patients in rooms with
low-e glass and interior blinds without access to optimized natural daylighting.

Dynamic glass can also contribute to a more sterile patient environment. Traditional
windows that require shades or blinds can attract dust and germs and need to be cleaned
and sanitized by hospital staff – a drain on employee resources. Without the need for
shades, dynamic glass windows are easier to access, clean and maintain.
Furthermore, since users can override the tint of SageGlass via a wall switch or the
SageGlass mobile app, patients and their families are in control of the amount of
daylighting.
 THE 6 PILLARS OF HEALING ARCHITECTURE
Through this synthetic process we deliver specific information to improve
your space.
1. BIOCLIMATIC DESIGN
Bioclimatic design of a building is the approach of maximizing the utilization of
natural environmental phenomena, aiming at optimal thermal and visual comfort,
while reducing the energy demand.

2. HOLISTIC SUSTAINABILITY
Sustainable is the development capable of meeting the needs of the present in such
a way that the ability of future generations to cover theirs will not be compromised.

3. HARMONIZING SPACES
Space layout, the placement of a building in a location, and the inner arrangement of
individual rooms in the building, can greatly influence the architectural result.

4. BUILDING HEALTH
The building envelope functions as our third skin, that is to say it constitutes a limit-
filter to the passing elements and our contact with the external environment.

5. RADIATION
Matter is condensed energy. Therefore the human body interacts with matter in its
environment through electromagnetic waves.

6. SACRED GEOMETRY
Function depends on form, and form on geometry. This relation can be observed in
the architecture of plants, organs and all natural elements.

Hermitage

Illness