Once again, healthcare design made mainstream news this week as NBC News posted a piece on the healing power of art on its website. For the most part, it was good, quoting a lot of knowledgeable sources and sharing interesting facts, like:
- More than 40% of healthcare facilities had arts programs in 2007
- More than half of veterans medical facilities offer arts programming at the patient bedside
- A recent study found that blood flow increased 10 percent to the "joy response" part of the brain when subjects saw a beautiful painting
- More than 60 percent of patients at the Cleveland Clinic reported a reduction in stress from the hospital's contemporary art collection
But those reporters, they always have to throw in a little controversy. This time it was about evidence-based design.
Describing evidence-based design as "basing art decisions on health data," the reporter quoted two people at McGill University School of Architecture who criticized evidence-based design for not being rigorous enough. Â But it seemed to me that they were only referring to the evidence itself.
Because it's much more than just evidence. Â It's a process by which you make design decisions based on the best available evidence linking the design of the physical environment to outcomes, and then measure the results of those decisions. Â If you do all 8 steps, you produce more evidence.
I'll agree with the folks at McGill that the evidence in certain areas isn't all that strong. Â But it's pretty strong in the area of artwork (read my recent post on this topic). The reporter completely missed that in this piece.
No matter. Â I'm happy to see the mainstream media covering healthcare design. Just as long as everyone understands that you can't believe everything you read in print.
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