By Rick Ruggles, Omaha World-Herald, Neb.
Jul. 14–The era of hospitals with pale walls and an institutional antiseptic stench is gone.
As new hospitals are built and old ones are expanded, they increasingly look and feel like hotels. They contain gardens and fireplaces, pianos and fountains.
Walk into Lakeside Hospital in west Omaha and you’ll find earth tones on floors and walls and a high bank of glass that allows natural light in. Bellevue Medical Center, expected to open in two years, will feature an outdoor boardwalk through a natural wetland and garden.
Some is for show, some is for dough and some is for healing. The trend toward more attractive hospital interiors has been in place since the 1990s. Among its tenets is single-occupancy rooms, which not only please patients and their families but also reduce infections.
Administrators also say more soothing, quieter environs are better for patients than intimidating places in which tubes and devices hang from walls and doctors and nurses are constantly being paged.
“Traditional hospitals are more nurse- and physician- and employee-focused,” said Cindy Alloway, chief operating officer at Lakeside Hospital. New hospitals put the patient first, she said, allowing family members to visit day or night, improving menus and creating a more appealing ambience.
At Lakeside, she said, staffers bake cookies and bread on patient floors, in part because the aroma is so much nicer than the smell of medicine and disinfectant.
It makes sense that a relaxed patient gets better faster than a tense one, said Cindy Arbaugh, project administrator for Bellevue Medical Center.
“Your mind has a powerful effect on how you feel,” Arbaugh said.
At Omaha’s Children’s Hospital, families walk into the vast space just to the left of the information desk and see goofy bird sculptures overhead. One bird appears to ride a unicycle, one wears running shoes and one has a rocket on his back. A blue clock with multi-colored gears is in the middle of the room.
The lobby’s key feature is an artificial river in which children place hands and feet or toss coins and stones.
Hannah Jo Thomas, 17 months old, splashed her feet in the 30-foot-long river one recent afternoon. Her mother, Manda Thomas, stayed close.
Hannah Jo, of Wiota, Iowa, visits the hospital regularly for physical therapy because she has been slow to walk or crawl. Her mother said Hannah Jo is miffed if they don’t arrive early enough for her to splash in the river.
“She loves it,” her mother said. “Water has a very calming effect on kids.”
Hannah Jo’s grandmother and great-grandmother sat nearby as the girl splashed. “She pounds on the water and gets everybody else wet,” said her grandma, Mary Lee.
Gary Perkins, chief executive officer of Children’s, said that when the hospital opened eight years ago, administrators wanted to convey that it would be a safe place for kids. The goal “was to do things that were fun and not silly . . . childlike without being childish,” Perkins said.
The information desk has rounded edges instead of sharp corners, and there is an emphasis throughout the hospital on carpeting to cushion falls. The carpet and slate panels on the walls have numerous animal and plant designs.
Images of blue sky and clouds are painted above some nurses’ stations and twinkle lights on the ceilings distract children in ultrasound rooms. There is children’s art throughout the hospital.
At Lakeside, small touches make the hospital feel less institutional. Patient bathrooms have 18-by-18-inch stained-glass panels embedded in them, and iron railings feature prairie grass designs.
On a tour one recent afternoon, Alloway pointed out that no one was sitting in a waiting room on a floor with 16 intensive-care rooms and 16 other patient rooms. That’s because family members are encouraged to spend time in the patient’s room and have the space to be there, she said.
Omaha-based HDR Architecture Inc., a leading designer of hospitals nationwide, designed Children’s Hospital, and the pediatric specialty center that is being added to it. HDR also is designing Methodist Women’s Hospital and Bellevue Medical Center.
Robert Holm, an interior designer for HDR, said a package of hotel-like improvements to hospital design can add about 1 percent in construction costs to a project, but the amenities have health and financial benefits.
The Center for Health Design, a California-based organization that promotes excellence in hospital design, suggests that appealing buildings and intelligent features can improve market share, decrease staff turnover and improve the care provided.
The center encourages single-occupancy rooms, installation of more hand-washing dispensers and noise reduction through carpet and better ceiling and wall sound absorption. The center also advocates gardens, art and natural light in today’s hospitals.
Sue Korth, chief operating officer of Methodist Women’s Hospital, said patients give up considerable control when they are admitted to a hospital. They want to walk into a warm, inviting setting where they are confident they will be treated with dignity, she said, and well-lighted, carpeted hallways with art on the walls tell the patient that her comfort and care are critical.
–Contact the writer: 444-1123, [email protected]
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