ICU - Intensive Care Units and Nature

ICU - Intensive Care Units and Nature

“Rethinking the intensive care environment: considering nature in nursing practice” is an excellent paper by Claire Minton, MN, RN, Lesley Batten, PhD, RN, it “explores evidence related to the negative impacts of the intensive care unit environment on patient outcomes and explores the potential counteracting benefits of ‘nature-based’ nursing interventions as a way to improve care outcomes.”…

Nature Stimulus enhancing the Birth Experience

Nature Stimulus enhancing the Birth Experience

A fascinating report in HERD: Health Environments Research and Design Journal, reports results of research studying the influence of nature stimulus in enhancing the birth experience.

“These findings support the study hypothesis which states that the nature images would influence the labor experience positively. In addition, the findings emphasize the importance of incorporating non-pharmacological techniques in the labor and delivery room (LDR) units to soothe the pain. Adding nature imagery to the LDR environment can be one of these techniques.

Faster Recovery

Faster Recovery

What would you rather stare at, flappy A4 photocopies, manky laminated words, nothing visually attractive. Would you create your home like this? Making an environment pleasant for all of us, whether Doctors or Patients should be important. Psychology and positive feelings engender healing and recovery. That’s not rocket science and is generally accepted. So what if there is an affordable solution that would help accelerate healing and bed space? Interesting, no?

Patient Recovery

Patient Recovery

We developed our biophilic range of fine art so it can support the wellness movement and help improve the lives of workers, patients and families. Our Hyper-Real print range is water-proof and fire-retardant and can go anywhere from surgery to recovery room, board-room to nursery, wet-room to a living wall.

While ideally one would install natural light, plants, waterfalls within a hospital environment, of course it is not practical in buildings already designed and built. Often there are no windows in rooms, or recovery rooms are soulless places, missing something natural. Hospitals and healthcare spaces are sterile environments for health reasons and so they should be, one advantage of installing Argenta-Wellness imagery into any recovery room, surgery, waiting rooms, A and E, Isolation rooms is that they can be cleaned with detergent (they are waterproof and fireproof). You can even install them in wet rooms to create a feeling of wellness as patients are washing, bringing a spa feeling to an otherwise unlikely environment. So also there are no concerns for an increase in maintenance costs, as they can be cleaned and wiped as part of the usual clean-up procedures.

Bringing the outdoors in can enhance the wellbeing of staff and patients alike, encouraging staff retention and happiness, and recovery for patients freeing up beds.