In a recent post on her Healthcare Designed blog, Christie Mayer notes that many hospitals have begun displaying healing art in their facilities based on current research.
When discussing appropriate subject matter, quantity and placement of art on labor and delivery floors, she says that maternity departments often take more leeway in how they dress up the environment. Because the patient experience in usually completely different here than in other departments, so is patient interaction with art.
"The debate started when a designer/friend in our office was tasked with selecting images of happy newborn babies to hang along the corridors of a maternity department. Feeling conflicted about the assignment she came to ask my thoughts. I just had my first baby a few months before …. and I was feeling uniquely qualified to share my opinion on the subject," she writes.
Mayer described how moms-to-be spend countless hours walking along miles of hospital corridors in an attempt to expedite their laborand focusing your attention on something is a necessary distraction. THe hospital where she gave birth was adorned with images of all the babies born to the department’s staff.
"Looking skeptical, my coworker noted, 'You had a welcomed pregnancy and a positive outcome. How would baby photos affect those who aren’t so lucky?'," Mayer writes.
Having a baby is complicated and comes with a lot of emotions. Not all are positive. The blog asks: “Don’t we have an obligation as healthcare designers to ‘first do no harm’?”
Read the blog.
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