It is difficult to change the environment of a hospital that may have been built 30-40 years, with planning likely taking place in the decade prior, when treatm

It is difficult to change the environment of a hospital that may have been built 30-40 years, with planning likely taking place in the decade prior, when treatment-for-cure one-size-fits-all type of care was the design objective. There’s also realities of laundry. Many families often bring in 2 or 3 days of clothes and launder them in between visits. Patients tend to go back into gowns when nursing staff try to find a balance between having family come in frequently (because of laundry soiled by incontinence), versus patients having available clothing to wear the next day for at least part of the day. On a tangent, consider admissions where next-of-kin live in a rural community and don’t drive due to personal health problems. The determinants of health that likely contributed to the admitting condition are perpetuated in acute care in very subtle ways. The issue is much more complex than “just don’t wear gowns”. There’s definitely solutions in changing workflows, but this needs the convincing of administrators to provide funding for additional staff.