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Filling hospitals with art reduces patient stress, anxiety and pain
- freetobesmart 7y agogetting sunlight also relieves depression and exercise and eating right will help with weight losss. This are obvoius things but they are not cures within themselves. Im sure there are tons of things hospitals can do to help the surroundings. Whose going to put up the money?
- kkhire 7y agoDefinitely notice that the best hospitals in the nation invest in the look and feel of their hallways with art and positive colors!
- webscalist 7y agoIt all depends on the type of art.
- usr1987 7y agoArt is the new snake oil! All we need is more art!
- ineedasername 7y agoIs this really what is causing the impact? Or do hospitals that care enough to budget keeping up nice appearances tend to care enough to manage patients' health better as well?
- chiefalchemist 7y ago> It also found that 16 out of 19 clinical staff working in the children’s emergency department noted that zoo-themed digital art, showing moving images of animals, improved young patients’ anxiety, while 15 out of 19 clinicians said it decreased their pain. What I find interesting/odd is that the article focuses on the patients. Yet makes no mention of the art's affect on the doctors and staff
- cwills 7y agoBeing facetious. But does blood splatter count as art?
- DaTwant 7y agoThis was a great initiative in Brisbane, Australia a few years back https://www.arts.qld.gov.au/aq-blog/art-in-the-stairwell https://www.arts.qld.gov.au/aq-blog/art-in-the-stairwell
- visualstudio 7y agoSo would filling the hospital with less patients.
- ghosthamlet 7y agoI was a patient, be in hospital more then two months, i always thought if there was classic music echo in the passage or my room, the pain will be less.
- newsgremlin 7y agoThe art would need to be something neutral or soothing that doesn't evoke strong emotions, something pleasant. I'd suggest Bob Ross style paintings to be the standard.
- d--b 7y agoNo 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...
- Whack-kneed 7y agoThere are superbeneficial (US-IRS) tax laws that let corps shelter money in fine art. Tax advantage is the prime reason you see fine art hanging in office hallways....
- Juliate 7y agoThat doesn't remove the actual benefit for people either.
- Ensorceled 7y agoQuality meals ... when my dad had his heart surgery his first solid meal was a low quality, high-fat hamburger on a plain white bun (no tomato or lettuce, just ketchup), salad with enough ranch dressing for 4 salads and a plastic container with peaches soaked in syrup (ie. HFCS). I was horrified. I mentioned it to his cardiologist who, to his credit, went on a rant about how the food seems to be especially chosen to sabotage any work he does.
- robocat 7y agoPerhaps it is more nuanced than that: getting the patient to eat after surgery is probably the most important thing - and perhaps burgers are the way to do that for the majority of patients? A quick Google of keywords (weight loss after cardiac surgery) shows papers with sentences like "Patients who lost weight faced a significantly increased risk of mortality than those who experienced no changes or gained weight after surgery", and "We conclude that obesity confers a survival advantage in the setting of the CABG surgery", "While various large-scale randomized controlled studies evaluated different post-operative nutrition strategies in rather mixed cohorts of critically ill patients, only few small clinical studies specifically investigated its effects in cardiac surgery patients. In these studies, malnutrition has been reported to increase morbidity and mortality after cardiac surgery". I agree it is obvious that good food is best, but or hard to know what the actually constraints are. I think it is unlikely the NHS will put on a nice entrecôte de boeuf!
- SamuelAdams 7y agoI'm curious if this applies to doctor offices too. In Japan, doctor offices are very barebones: small, cramped, and only has enough space for the doctor and one patient. Since Japan has national health care, they spend the minimum amount necessary to keep these offices operational. So there is no art, no big spaces, no "nice to have" things. If a patient only spends 15-30 minutes in that environment, will it really impact their stress, anxiety and pain?
- winter_blue 7y ago> they spend the minimum amount necessary They could make a policy change to accept art donations (of paintings, posters, etc), and put them up on the walls. I imagine a lot of people would be happy to donate art for the public good.
- nomy99 7y agoThe article says its for patients "receiving intrusive examinations, surgery, chemotherapy and emergency care". So looks like the target of study is high stress cases. As for cost, no one said you have to install Picasso or brand names. Plenty of local artists could contribute to wall designs, or even contributions from the affiliated hospital university's art department.
- covercash 7y agoHaving 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.
- SamuelAdams 7y agoReason 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.
- JulianMorrison 7y agoHave you ever looked at a seemingly clean surface with a UV light? It's surprising how much invisible ick there is, and it pops out since it visibly fluoresces. This might be a useful way to see the spills?
- Fomite 7y agoA number of hospitals actually use UV machine to clean rooms.
- SamuelAdams 7y agoYes, that's another verification tool they use for highly contagious (think HIV / AIDS / HEP-C) patients. However, those lights are usually handheld and small. Expecting cleaning staff to cover 100% of all walls each time they cleaned it (which is multiple times a day) is prone to failure. Plus those lights work best when the room is dark. Which means you could only clean it at night. And some rooms have multiple patients, so now the cleaner people will need to work around them / have them be OK with the room being dark for a while. This can work, but again not every patient will be comfortable with a "crime scene investigation" happening while they recover.
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- jdietrich 7y agoBefore 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/documents/ChelseaAndWestminsterResearchproject.pdf http://www.publicartonline.org.uk/resources/research/documen...
- arkades 7y agoI tried, and could not. And I’m baseline a little skeptical because the NHS has a history of pushing very poorly designed fad research precisely like this.
- protomyth 7y agoThis [1] at least has an reference section, but most of the actual research listed is based on audio not visual. I suspect that this article is an advertisement for Chelsea and Westminster Hospital’s new book, The Healing Arts which is available from Unicorn Publishing Group. I get the feeling any data, if available, is in the book. 1) http://www.lahf.org.uk/sites/default/files/Chelsea%20and%20Westminster%20Literature%20Review%20Staricoff%20and%20Clift%20FINAL.pdf http://www.lahf.org.uk/sites/default/files/Chelsea%20and%20W...
- DanBC 7y agoI spent a lot of time in Chelsea and Westminster and it's not a very nice hospital. The burns unit was clean, bright and airy. But there were limited activity available because of infection control reasons, and the layout of the hospital was hostile to physical activity. Using the stairs was hard, all the signs and designs pushed you to the elevators. And those had been programmed incorrectly so they took an age to arrive and the to get you to your floor. As far as built environments for burns units go it was better than Birmingham Shelly Oak (Victorian building, excellent care because military connection), better than Bristol Frenchay (awful care, I think they've knocked it down now), but not as good as Salisbury (better layout, good care). This is a severe problem for the NHS: The amount of estate that's just terrible is surprising.
- kartan 7y agoI 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 the new European type. There was a sign that said, "Do not leave weelchears in this zone". Of course, there were wheelchairs as they did not have space anywhere else. It felt so completely wrong. Are we, as a society, investing in the right things? Austerity in Spain means that there is no money for hospitals, education, etc. Anything that is not live-and-dead is a luxury. Meanwhile, those companies, all registered in tax havens like Malta or Ireland, had money to spend in fancy breakfast, new furniture every few years, unused monitors in every wall, ... We know that to go to a hospital is a bad experience as you would like to be anywhere else. Why do we make it so much worse? Why we do not invest in life quality? 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.
- jopsen 7y agoPrinting a some posters of public domain art should be fairly cheap. Sure, you'll still need to do it and put them on the walls.
- barrkel 7y agoPatients are usually an inconvenience to the good running of a healthcare system. In other words, incentives aren't aligned. The people with the power to make decisions have little or no forces making things better for healthcare consumers, outside of boutique private healthcare.
- kingkawn 7y agoIt 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.
- adamsea 7y ago
- duxup 7y agoAfter several rounds of kids with hospital stays I really appreciated common spaces with an assortment of furniture where you could take some time to ... not feel like you're in such a serious clinical place.
- munificent 7y agoThis works outside of hospitals for people who aren't patients too.
- giarc 7y agoThe 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.
- awillen 7y agoThat 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.
- giarc 7y agoI 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.
- awillen 7y agoIf you're paying 65k for insurance, the pieces are valuable. They could well be behind glass or protected in other ways.
- artur_makly 7y agoWe've realized that years ago..that's why we launched: https://POPteam.io https://POPteam.io There is no better feeling than seeing all those boring spiritually sterile hallways magically transform into a kaleidoscope of humanity.
- volkk 7y agoare you specifically targeting hospitals and working with them? or is this just a plug for some random startup that does art for other startups
- artur_makly 7y agoRandom we are not. we've given this a ton of thought when we pivoted from our mass-customization marketplace: https://JuicyCanvas.com https://JuicyCanvas.com Our clients include the full spectrum of businesses and consumers ( Uber, Burning Man, Private Schools, Medical Clinics, and Families )
- volkk 7y agocool! thanks for the response
- mensetmanusman 7y agoArticles 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.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- BuildTheRobots 7y agoWhen 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.
- merpnderp 7y agoWhere is this? In the US I’ve never seen a hospital without windows and free tv. Although gyms are different, likely because if you are healthy enough to hit the gym you are healthy enough to go home. Although one thing that always stood out is no one is expected to sleep in a hospital. A nurse or doctor will likely be in every few hours doing something to wake you up. And in between there will always be noise from the hall.
- mhh__ 7y agoDoesn't sound out of place for some NHS hospitals
- rolltiide 7y agoCan you shed insight on why the acceptance of the NHS is like a religion or seemingly tied to national identity so much? Modification or criticism of NHS seems like an off limits topic with UK residents, and it just seems like a weird topic to be off limits so I don't really understand
- AdmiralAsshat 7y agoThey should probably qualify what kind of art seems to reduce anxiety. I could line a patient waiting room with H.R. Giger paintings, but that might not achieve the same result: https://slowsoulburn.files.wordpress.com/2014/02/hr_giger_dune_v1.jpeg https://slowsoulburn.files.wordpress.com/2014/02/hr_giger_du... http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-lwoGruDK7ww/TWaPQYPMQ9I/AAAAAAAAAc0/1tYozs93qZA/s1600/hr_giger_lilith.jpg http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-lwoGruDK7ww/TWaPQYPMQ9I/AAAAAAAAAc... https://slowsoulburn.files.wordpress.com/2014/02/hr-giger_003406131.jpg https://slowsoulburn.files.wordpress.com/2014/02/hr-giger_00... https://pickadolla.files.wordpress.com/2014/05/elp___h_r_giger_tribute_by_algbral-d3bbkjn.jpg https://pickadolla.files.wordpress.com/2014/05/elp___h_r_gig...
- KON_Air 7y agoRather then anxious I'd be dissapointed because I didn't walk out as a biomechanical cyborg.
- warent 7y agoI would be interested to know if this artwork actually would actually have the same result for certain people, i.e. goths, punks, or other alternative artists.
- amatecha 7y agoI would be pretty stoked to see H.R. Giger artwork in any place (I have visited his gallery & cafe!), but I think it might be bad to dwell on it for a long time, since it would probably push you towards thoughts about existential questions and the nature of humanity, things like that. Probably not the best subjects for when you're already anxious about possibly-life-threatening hospital situations, heh.
- myself248 7y agoThe folks who decorated Denver International Airport would like a word with you... https://www.outtherecolorado.com/gallery/whats-creepy-apocalyptic-paintings-denver-international-airport-2/ https://www.outtherecolorado.com/gallery/whats-creepy-apocal...
- phinnaeus 7y agoA good friend of mine works with an organization in North Carolina called Arts For Life [0]. They set up tables where kids can create art, not just have it on the walls around them. [0]: http://www.artsforlifenc.org/ http://www.artsforlifenc.org/
- rwmj 7y agoWhat's the control group? Is it an undecorated hospital or a hospital decorated to the same standard but without using art?
- kwhitefoot 7y agoHow is this news? Every hospital I have been in recently has art on the walls, some lots, some not so much but it's there. Even the dismally badly designed, and laughably misnamed, Great Western Hospital in Swindon has pictures on the walls, unfortunately few of them are where the patients spend the most time.
- woshea901 7y agoI bet filling hospitals with plants would work even better.
- nwah1 7y agoAnd both would work better than either individually.
- marcosdumay 7y agoI was looking if I would have to add this comment... Ditto for natural ventilation.
- roberte3 7y agoNo, I'm so sick of the local cancer centers rotating corps of musicians. Want me to get stabby? Keep playing your drum hippie...
- barking 7y agoOr if it's an "Art Installation"
- dheera 7y agoPragmatic question: What channels do artists have today to sell art to hospitals? The average price of paintings or photograph prints are a tiny fraction of what they spend on medical equipment, and if it reduces patient stress, it sounds like an incredibly big win-win.
- abootstrapper 7y agoI’m sure it probably helps the staff as well.
- stevesearer 7y agoI run https://healthcaresnapshots.com https://healthcaresnapshots.com which publishes photos of healthcare projects from around the world. We have found that there is a wide variety of styles within healthcare facilities from bland and cold to colorful and vibrant. My gut tells me that decision makers don't try new things for a variety of reasons, with one being that they don't know what the possibilities are that exist. Articles such as this will hopefully help more people in the right places know what is possible and worth trying.
- CapricornNoble 7y agoThis is known to anyone who plays the game Rimworld.
- rajeshp1986 7y agoBut as a consumer I don't want to pay for art installations in hospitals in addition to the enormous hospital bills and healthcare insurance.
- fataliss 7y agoI think it's safe to assume that anything you can do to make the patient feel more comfortable and take their mind away from their situation will help with stress and anxiety. It's like the dentist chairs with a netflix table above your head. You are less likely to be aware of what's going on in your mouth and be hyper sensitive to the doc's every move if you are distracted by the latest avengers!
- zjaffee 7y agoThe article seems to be describing this as if it's a new idea, but at least in my experience, when you walk through some of the more world class hospitals (The Cleveland Clinic comes to mind), there is clearly a tremendous amount of thought in regards to interior architecture. High ceilings that damp out sound, generally light and soft colors, soft sounds and diverse art installations. It's a real shame that when people discuss architecture we largely focus on the exterior of buildings, but truly the craft is about how people move through and experience a space. This is especially relevant in the current era of large glass office towers, which while on the outside tend to seem rather bland, tend to have a far better interior experience than their external one puts on.
- sbhn 7y agoFilling hospitals with BBC 24 News Broadcasts, raises stress, anxiety and pain
- Insanity 7y agoThe hospital where I work has art around the halls through which the patients move. It changes every few weeks and features mostly local artist. I quite enjoy it.
- RocketSyntax 7y agoSounds like spurious correlation. Is it that the hospitals that can afford art can afford better care?