Reducing Stress in Pediatric Hospitals (02-23-10)

Patients of any age can be stressed, but children may be particularly upset by hospital visits - no matter what your age, stress compromises the functioning of your immune system.  When designers from HDR worked on the new children’s hospital affiliated with Banner Health in Mesa Arizona, they took several important steps to minimize patient stress.  Medical procedures do not take place in patient rooms.  Those are relocated to treatment rooms on each floor.  Patient rooms are designed to look like homes and they are “safe places where no harm comes.”  The entrance to each patient room resembles an entrance to an individual house, and different housing styles are arranged along a hallway:  “Patients don’t have rooms, but ‘homes’ with various exterior elevations in the hallway, including brownstone, southern and western motifs.”

Jim Hohenstein.  2010.  “What if the Kids Ran the Hospital?” Medical Construction and Design, vol. 6, no. 1, pp. 16-18.