Margo Annemans

Hospital Reality from a Lying Perspective:Exploring a Sensory Research Approach

Despite many efforts by healthcare providers, for most people a hospital stay is rarely a pleasant experience. The hospital building as such is part of this perception. Moreover, the specific situation of a hospital stay is largely determined by the material reality of the organisation. Studies on hospital environments tend to single out one particular aspect, e.g. the view through the window, or presence of green (Ulrich 1984a, 1984b) and try to prove its clinical outcome. Yet they fail to translate their results to the design of real-life settings (Rubin et al., 1998, Cbz 2008). Moreover, the influence of patients’ peculiar perspective, i.e. lying in a hospital bed, on the way they experience the reality of the hospital is largely under researched.

Architects’ Approaches to Healing Environment in Designing a Maggie’s Cancer Caring Centre

Abstract The built environment is increasingly recognized to influence people and their well-being. The related concept of Healing Environment is adopted by the Maggie’s Centres, which provide psychosocial cancer support in the UK. Outstanding architecture, stated to have the power to uplift people, is an inherent part of the programme. This paper investigates the meaning of Healing Environment in design practice. In-depth interviews with five designers of different Maggie’s Centres provide insight into their perspective. The study reveals particularities of the design process, such as a close collaboration with the client-expert. Furthermore, it identifies common design themes designers associated with Healing Environment, such as nature, spatial experience, domesticity, and privacy. Finally, a focus group interview with users of the Dundee Maggie’s Centre augments the discussion on how architecture can contribute to well-being.

In-patients’ spatial experience: Interactions between material, social and time-related aspects

For inpatients who spend a longer time in the hospital, the built environment plays a significant role in their experience. While many hospital boards aim to create a patient-centered hospital, few have a specific idea about what this means in terms of spatial qualities. This creates a major challenge for those involved in designing hospital environments. Therefore, we aimed to identify which elements play a role in inpatients’ spatial experience, and how these elements relate and interact. Patients were followed during transport and afterward interviewed. In this way, we gained insight into their spatial experience, static, and in motion. This experience turns out to be shaped by material, social, and time-related aspects. An analysis of the interactions between these aspects yields a nuanced understanding of how inpatients’ experience of the hospital environment is shaped by the spatial and social organization, movement, and perspective. This understanding should allow informing hospital boards, architects, and staff to start designing hospital buildings in a more patient-centered way.

Being Wheeled or Walking A Qualitative Study of Patients’ Spatial Experience in Two Distinct Day Surgery Centers

Objective: In this article, we explore what a different way of moving—being wheeled versus walking—means for the spatial experience of day surgery patients. Background: Day surgery centers can be conceived in very different manners. Some are organized similar to traditional hospital admittance; others are located in a specifically designed part of the hospital and receive patients as guests who walk through the entire procedure. Methods: We conducted semistructured interviews with 37 patients at two distinct day surgery centers. Results: Despite the different managerial concepts and corresponding spatial designs, in both centers, patients’ spatial experience is shaped by the interrelation of material, social, and time-related aspects. However, the chosen concept results in a different experience throughout patients’ journey. Conclusions: Based on an analysis of the different journeys, we conclude that patients’ interpretation of a hospital’s care vision is influenced not only by what the hospital communicates explicitly or how it educates its staff but also by what is implicitly told by the built environment.

Researching and Designing Health Care Environments: A Systematized Review of Creative Research Methods

In research and design, Creative Research Methods (CRMs) are useful to gain insight into user perspectives. Reviews suggest that CRMs offer potential to engage people, yet little detail is available regarding their use in relation to built health care environments. Consider environments for cancer care, where patients are confronted with particular physical and emotional challenges. This review aims to synthesize what is known from existing literature about CRMs exploring user experience when researching and designing (cancer) care environments. Based on 16 items, we evaluate the potential of CRMs, offering insight into why, how, where, and when they are employed. Generally little consideration is shown for participants’ abilities and limitations. Our analysis further emphasizes the importance of reflecting on visual methods, and the need to report research approaches transparently including where CRMs are used. A sophisticated research approach can leverage CRMs’ potential to study experience and carry artifacts forward to inform design(ers).

At Home in the Hospital and Hospitalised at Home: Exploring Experiences of Cancer Care Environments

Contemporary cancer care takes place within a healthcare system catering for a highly mobile demographic. This study aimed to better understand how patients experience the cancer care environment (CCE) and the role of spatial aspects therein. We explore the effectiveness of photovoice in discussing this experience over time and the extent to which image production helps emphasise the role of spatial aspects. Three patients were interviewed over the course of 6 weeks. Experiences of the CCE turned out to change over time and across space as repeated travel to the hospital and transitions within the hospital resulted in new impressions and routines. Participants describe the dynamic and linked makeup of the CCE, suggesting a concatenation of places over time. The photovoice method blurs the boundary between researcher and participant, allowing features of the CCE to come to the fore that would otherwise not be considered. Over time, the hospital becomes ‘a second home’ to some, facilitating more than medical consultations and treatments only. A particular challenge for hospital design is therefore to improve the initial experience. Simultaneously, the home environment becomes a place of medical care at a distance. Caution is required when transforming the home into such a place as patients can feel insecure and distant from the watchful eye of the specialists.