Hospital Design
How to improve the quality of life in medical facilities?
A hospital stay can be intensely stressful, even traumatic, both physically and psychologically. Both patients and medical staff are sometimes exposed to situations of extreme vulnerability. For this reason, both work and stay conditions must be irreproachable.
Patients need to have complete faith in the handling of their medical situation, in terms of both quality and safety. Medical staff need to know their work environment was designed with due consideration for their personal and professional needs.
Short for time? Here are 3 key tips to improve the quality of life in hospitals.
1. Prioritising the emotional aspect improves outcomes
The patient journey passes through a number of potentially anxiety-provoking steps: announcing the pathology, explaining the stages of the treatment, setting up the treatment itself, and evaluating treatment effectiveness. For the best patient experience, these steps must take place in a dedicated space, designed to encourage calm and serenity. COVID-19 crisis has brought to light that patients’ intimacy is preserved by maintaining the link with family and the outside world, whether physical or digital, which will improve patients’ well-being.
The levers of patient expectations:
2. Control of the healing environment empowers the patient
Too many patients express discomfort with the clinical feel and sense of depersonalisation of hospital environments, which can impact stress levels and mental well-being. It is therefore important to minimise the feeling of diminishment associated with the hospital stay. This need can be addressed thanks to calm, clear spaces that respect natural biorhythms, close to nature, where one’s needs and expectations are not ignored. And also by monitoring lighting, temperature and noise.
3. Rest and respite help medical staff to cope
Moments of respite are an important factor in emotional stability for everyone involved in delivering healthcare.
Medical staff frequently highlight the “right to respite”, and the need for private spaces dedicated not just to work, but also to rest. Therefore, addressing staff quality of life means not only attending to the need for physical, but also psychological comfort, for example providing emotional and psychological support services.
