Home Away from Home: How Comfort and Choice in Hospital Settings Helps Patients Heal

by Abigail Katovsky, Britni Stone

Summary

People are often fond of their homes because of the comfort and choice they provide. In contrast, some healthcare facilities feel institutional and stark. Because patient experience is highly dependent on environment, incorporating the comforts and aesthetics of home can help create a welcoming atmosphere and ease patient anxieties. Here, we offer ideas—for a variety of budgets and scales—for how to do so. This piece was written by Abigail Katovsky and Britni Stone.

A home is a place to live. But it’s much more than just that. At their best, homes provide a sense of comfort, personal identity and familiarity. Home is also where we experience choice—the ability to decide when, where and how to be; to choose materials, furniture and lighting that make us comfortable; to showcase our personalities with artwork and accessories; and to open the windows to engage our senses.

Within healthcare facilities, there is a welcome shift from design that is institutional and sparse, to a more human-centered approach that echoes similar attributes to those we might find at home. Because patient experience is highly dependent upon environment, recreating the comforts and aesthetics of home can ease patient anxieties and in turn aid the overall patient experience. Our team recently worked on two concepts for public hospitals in the UK—a children’s pediatric facility and a cancer treatment center—that incorporate scalable, budget-conscious ideas, from personal touches like furniture and textiles to larger-scale interventions involving technology and planning, to make the hospital seem more like home.

Tap into the Power of Personal Choice: Personal choice is especially powerful when a person is most vulnerable. Designing waiting rooms with a variety of seating options allows patients to choose where and how they wait. Adding greenery or a kitchenette to make snacks or drinks can further mitigate stress.

Build a Sense of Identity and Wonder through Artwork: Art in healthcare environments provides a sense of identity and adds an element of delight—for example, branded environments with whimsical graphics that also assist in wayfinding. If budget allows, incorporating art consultants and environmental branding specialists at the onset of design allows for a meaningful, curated look and feel that is integrated into the larger architecture and interior design strategy.

Engage the Senses: The reassurance and comfort of home is not just about the space a person occupies, but how that space makes them feel, and how it engages the senses. Incorporating ample windows where possible, through shallow planning, circulation with glazing at ends of corridors, and staff spaces that are located on external walls, allows access to views and daylight which tremendously impact how we experience a space.

Plan with a Human Scale in Mind: Hospitals are much larger than a standard home environment, so spaces must be broken down to accommodate a more human scale. Space planning within patient rooms is also key since a patient’s bedroom must act as all rooms in a home while they are in the hospital. Opportunity for time away from bed—via a fold up desk or table that can be utilized at mealtimes—and easy-to-control lighting for different moods and times of day can give a sense of separation.

Home Away from Home: How Comfort and Choice in Hospital Settings Helps Patients Heal

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