Lighting Control in Patient Rooms: Understanding Nurses' Perceptions of Hospital Lighting Using Qualitative Methods

The Perceived Support From Light and Color Before and After an Evidence-Based Design Intervention in an Emergency Department Environment: A Quasi-Experimental Study

AIM

To evaluate patients' and family members' perceived support from light and color before, compared with after an evidence-based design (EBD) intervention at an emergency department (ED) using a validated instrument-the Light and Color Questionnaire (LCQ).

BACKGROUND

EDs offer acute care day and night. Thus, a supportive physical environment where light and color is crucial for how the milieu is experienced is vital. Research is limited on how care settings are perceived as supportive by users.

METHODS

Quasi-experimental evaluation of the refurbishing and remodeling of an ED by an expert group of nurse managers, nursing staff, nursing researchers and architects in south Sweden. LCQ includes dimensions "maximizing awareness and orientation," "maximizing safety and security," "supporting functional abilities," "providing privacy," "opportunities for personal control" (not for LCQ-Color), and "regulation and quality of stimulation." LCQ was analyzed and compared in 400 surveys from 100 patients and 100 family members before the intervention and 100 patients and 100 family members after the intervention.

RESULTS

The LCQ total score significantly improved after the intervention for both patients and family members. Four of the six dimensions of LCQ Light subscale scores were significantly higher for family members, and three of the six dimensions were significantly higher for patients after the intervention. The LCQ Color subscale score showed significant improvements for all five dimensions for both patients and family members after the intervention.

CONCLUSION

This study showed improved perceived support from light and color in the physical environment for patients and family members after an EBD intervention at an emergency department using a validated instrument-the Light and Color Questionnaire.

Evaluating Therapeutic Healthcare Environmental Criteria: Architectural Designers' Perspectives

This study presents architectural designers’ perception of the importance of healthcare environmental criteria in the implementation of user-centered, therapeutic hospital design. Architectural designers with over three years of professional experience (N = 182) in South Korea were surveyed using an empirical questionnaire. The extensive interviews of 15 hospital design experts followed to interpret the survey results and discuss the barriers and suggestions for the successful delivery of therapeutic healthcare design practice. Among the 27 variables selected from the preliminary literature review, factor analyses revealed seven important therapeutic environmental criteria (i.e., management, interior design, spatial quality, service, nature and rest, ambient indoor comfort, and social program and space; χ2 = 1783.088, df = 300, p < 0.001). Analyses of variance revealed the level of importance among these criteria related to respondents’ personal and professional characteristics. Significant differences were found for the variables from the management, interior design, and spatial quality factors in relation to the respondents sex and age. For the successful delivery of therapeutic healthcare design, the design experts highlighted the implementation of evidence-based design practice that integrates local and international knowledge from various hospital users and multi-disciplinary specialists participating in the healthcare design process.

A Survey of the General Hospital Environment: Focusing on Pajama Design in a Japanese University Hospital

This study investigated nurses' and patients' perceptions of hospital room environment and patient pajama design. Nurses working in a Japanese university hospital and patients aged 20 and older were surveyed. Over 75% of patients rated the hospital environment and hospital rooms as "very good" or "good," but less than one in three nurses rated them similarly. Patients were more likely than nurses to rate rental pajamas as "very good" or "good." Contrary to the nurses, only about one in four patients valued wearing well-designed pajamas. Nurses' and patients' perceptions differed regarding hospital pajamas, but not about improving hospital rooms.

Effects of Image Quality on the Accuracy Human Pose Estimation and Detection of Eye Lid Opening/Closing Using Openpose and DLib

OBJECTIVE

The application of computer models in continuous patient activity monitoring using video cameras is complicated by the capture of images of varying qualities due to poor lighting conditions and lower image resolutions. Insufficient literature has assessed the effects of image resolution, color depth, noise level, and low light on the inference of eye opening and closing and body landmarks from digital images.

METHOD

This study systematically assessed the effects of varying image resolutions (from 100 × 100 pixels to 20 × 20 pixels at an interval of 10 pixels), lighting conditions (from 42 to 2 lux with an interval of 2 lux), color-depths (from 16.7 M colors to 8 M, 1 M, 512 K, 216 K, 64 K, 8 K, 1 K, 729, 512, 343, 216, 125, 64, 27, and 8 colors), and noise levels on the accuracy and model performance in eye dimension estimation and body keypoint localization using the Dlib library and OpenPose with images from the Closed Eyes in the Wild and the COCO datasets, as well as photographs of the face captured at different light intensities.

RESULTS

The model accuracy and rate of model failure remained acceptable at an image resolution of 60 × 60 pixels, a color depth of 343 colors, a light intensity of 14 lux, and a Gaussian noise level of 4% (i.e., 4% of pixels replaced by Gaussian noise).

CONCLUSIONS

The Dlib and OpenPose models failed to detect eye dimensions and body keypoints only at low image resolutions, lighting conditions, and color depths.

CLINICAL IMPACT

Our established baseline threshold values will be useful for future work in the application of computer vision in continuous patient monitoring.

Lighting the Patient Room of the Future: Evaluating Different Lighting Conditions for Performing Typical Nursing Tasks

PURPOSE

This study explores how aspects of lighting in patient rooms are experienced and evaluated by nurses while performing simulated work under various lighting conditions. The lighting conditions studied represent design standards consistent with different environments of care-traditional, contemporary, and future.

BACKGROUND

Recent advances in lighting research and technology create opportunities to use lighting in hospital rooms to improve everyday experience and provide researchers with opportunities to explore a new set of research questions about the effects of lighting on patients, guests, and staff. This study focuses on the experience of nurses delivering simulated patient care.

METHOD

Perceptions of each of the 13 lighting conditions were evaluated by nurses using rating scales for difficulty of task completion, comfort, intensity, appropriateness of the lighting color, and naturalness of the lighting during the task. The nurses' ratings were analyzed alongside qualitative reflections to provide insight into their responses.

RESULTS

Significant differences were found for several a priori hypotheses. Interesting findings provide insight into lighting to support circadian synchronization, lighting at night, the distribution of light in the patient room and the use of multiple lighting zones, and the use of colored lighting.

CONCLUSION

The results of this study provide insight into potential benefits and concerns of these new features for patient room lighting systems and reveal gaps in the existing evidence base that can inform future investigations.