ENHANCING HEALING ENVIRONMENTS — Improving Patient Wellness with Daylight Harvesting

When designing healing environments, such as hospitals and psychiatric care facilities, architects and specifiers know that form follows function. Every detail of the building’s design must contribute to its purpose to mend and restore. This includes not only optimizing the flow of the facility, making sure patients and providers can move through the building properly, but also specifying products that enhance the environment’s purpose.  

Among the many considerations for architects in healthcare design is the way patients will experience natural light.   

The Link Between Light and Wellness    

The link between light and health is a fascinating one. It is critical to human functioning. Light exposure synchronizes our circadian rhythm, enables crucial chemical reactions within our bodies, and affects our mood and perception. 

Research published in Arch Gen Psychiatry in 1998, found that light exposure as a form of treatment for patients with “winter depression,” or Seasonal Affective Disorder, took half as much time as antidepressants to produce desired results. 

Seven years later, another study examined spinal surgery patients. Being exposed to more than 46% light, the patients tended to report less distress and pains than did those in a darker ward. They also needed 22% fewer painkillers, which led to 21% savings in total treatment costs. 

Finally, another peer-reviewed 2018 study, “The Effects of Natural Daylight on Length of Hospital Stay,” conducted over a 15-year period, showed that patients’ length of stay was shorter for those near the window compared with those near the door...” 

That same study noted: “Through analysis of a large medical database, we demonstrated that patients with beds next to the window had shorter LOS than did those next to the door. We posit that this was due to the presence of natural light...” 

Importantly, it concluded, “This has implications for hospital design.” 

A New Trend in Hospital Design That Promotes Healing

Daylight harvesting uses natural light to offset the amount of artificial light needed to properly illuminate an indoor space. This technique increases energy efficiency while negating light trespass and minimizing the thermal load from the sun. But it has benefits, not only for a hospital’s pocketbook, but for its patients.  

“In these settings, integrating high-efficiency motorized window treatments into a hospital’s design can give providers optimized control over light filtering, as well as their patients’ exposure to regenerative natural light,” said Jan Wade, with A&I Sales and Development, who worked with hospitals professionally for more than a decade. 

Powered shades, for example, can be used to create an ambient environment that influences the senses, increases morale, and promotes healing. They can be programmed by providers to provide the right amount of light at the right time.  

“This is a new trend in patient-centered hospital design,” said Wade, “and architects and design professionals, as well as manufacturers, are here for it.” 

Architects, specifiers, and design professionals can utilize a combination of efficient products and sustainable lighting techniques that contribute to healing environments. For more information on A&I’s line of motorized and automated product options, visit our website, or contact Commercial Specification Manager Dave Keegan at dkeegan@a-imanufacturing.net.