Health Experience Design 2022

Healthcare professionals are challenged to create work environments that promote quality healthcare facilities and quality outcomes. More than ever, healthcare professionals are challenged to care for patients at the expense of their own wellbeing. Healthcare professionals are overwhelmed, experience emotional exhaustion and burn out, and report depersonalization and lack of personal accomplishment. The impact of these emotional and physical characteristics of the healthcare professionals’ work environment have been elevated for critical examination and intervention Two important initiatives: Healthy Nurse Healthy Nation and the Well-Being Initiative were launched by the American Nurses Association to support the mental health, well-being, and resilience of all healthcare professionals.

This presentation describes current research exploring the built environment’s impact on the wellbeing of healthcare professionals, and how healthcare professionals can leverage research to improve their working life. Florence Nightingale’s Environmental Adaptation Theory is also introduced. She believed that the environment could be altered to allow the laws of nature to influence healing. Her theory emerged from her empirical observation that poor or difficult environments led to poor health and disease. Nightingale’s theory helps us understand how to design improved environments for healthcare professionals and patients. As healthcare professionals, we need to identify ways to tie people, place, and process together to create healing spaces for staff and patients.