Make Me Feel Comfortable and Comforted
Once a patient enters a facility, Land wants them to feel like a guest. “I like to think: ‘We’ve got you now. You’re in our house.’”
To ensure guests are comfortable and comforted, Land says “sharp edges” must be removed. “For decades, it seemed like hospitals got whiter and brighter and shinier and bigger and all those things that really seem to move away from what would be more naturally comforting or more experiential,” he says.
Natural and warmer colors create comfort and ease, of course, but Dignity Health is taking it one step further with technology, including large banks of monitors. “Now, that doesn’t sound very friendly,” Land notes, “but these monitors show a real-time view of a meadow with sound so patients feel like they’re essentially interacting with a window on a live scene. We call it a positive distraction: It’s something patients weren’t quite expecting that helps reduce stress.”
In addition, Dignity Health is installing thousands of pieces of geographically appropriate artwork. “We want to make sure we are being appropriate to the environment and geography where a facility is but also make it somewhat interesting,” Land remarks. “Whether you have had a surgery yourself or your family’s visiting you, the artwork feels familiar because it’s really out of the geography and it’s clear and bright. The artwork we’re carefully selecting is designed to bring nature inside and conjure a pause or reflection.”
Help Me Navigate with Ease
Hospitals are among the most confusing structures built. They’re often built over time, and their operations aren’t very intuitive for patients and visitors. To minimize navigation difficulties, Dignity Health has released an app that currently is available at three hospital locations. The app provides a map of the hospital, among other things. “We’ve actually put up geo-fences around all our hospital campuses so when you fire up that app, whether you’re at the facility or at home and on your way, the app knows where you are and can help you navigate,” Land says. Not everyone carries a smartphone, however, so the same platform operates identically at the front desk and on home computers, so visitors can print the map.
There are many complicated issues surrounding wayfinding in hospitals, which is again why Land likes to use international symbols. “You go down the freeway and you know there’s a bathroom because there’s an international symbol there,” he says. “I don’t know why we wouldn’t use international symbols in other public places besides airports. We’ve begun thinking of what’s the natural thing that I don’t have to teach you before you get here? How do we meet you where you are? We want to figure out more ways to use international symbols.”
In addition, Dignity Health wants patients to be prepared to leave the hospital. The health system is testing an interactive patient television that will go into all rooms, allowing patients to access required information. “Sometimes a patient might want to see information about a surgery they’re going to have or how to care for themselves after they go home,” Land explains. “There will be education about medications, side effects, things their doctors want them to see. The television can record whether a patient viewed the information, or we can make it available after they go home because patients aren’t always feeling great in the hospital.”
See Me as a Person First
Patients need to feel respected, Land says, but when hospital staff members have many things to do, a patient easily can feel like he or she is lost among many. “Our clinicians have trained a great deal around Hello HumanKindness to acknowledge people, engage them and do so very quickly. That’s just a very tangible thing,” Land adds.
In addition, Dignity Health is finding ways to share patient updates. Land is launching a test in Southern California of “My Care Text”, which makes it possible for family members to track a surgery. Land explains: “If a loved one is going into surgery, we can actually text family members every 15 or 30 minutes that it’s going fine. We might even suggest they take this text to the coffee shop and receive a free cup of coffee. Maybe we could give them a five-minute exercise. These are the kinds of things that reduce stress and actually improve your well-being and your ability to care for your loved one when they get out of surgery.”
Inspire My Spirit to Heal
Dignity Health’s Hello Humankindness campaign underscores the necessity of body, mind and spirit in the healing process. “We need to make sure that, through our chapels, our words, inspiration—regardless of your faith background—that we can, in fact, inspire you to want to heal, to will to heal and to get better,” Land says.
Visitors can inspire patients to heal, so Dignity Health wants visitors to be comfortable at the hospital so they come more often and stay longer. To increase visitor comfort, Land brought in six furniture manufacturers and asked them to show him the best of their best, as well as items that weren’t in their catalogs yet. “We had the manufacturers compete to design a family chair that can be in a patient room. We wanted wheels on it; We wanted it to fold flat so it could be a bed; we wanted it to have an integrated charging port for a phone or computer; we wanted it to have a bendy light that comes over the top; we wanted a table, like in grade school with the swing-up arm on the side that you tilt over to become your desk,” he recalls.
The competition was a success and, today, others in the health-care industry are requesting the same chair. “It’s a little odd-looking the first time you see it because it does lots of things, but it really helps the patient even though it’s really not for the patient,” Land explains.
PHOTOS: Dignity Health