Hospitals need to be lit round the clock and the truth is that they cannot depend entirely on natural lighting. The supplementary lighting used in healthcare facilities should be well crafted and dependable to guarantee high levels of working conditions and safety for the staff.
We bet you already knew this, but is there a deeper relationship between lighting and healthcare? Let us discuss that.
Benefits of Good Lighting in Hospitals
As you can imagine, good lighting is beneficial for both patients and staff at healthcare facilities. Here are some of the benefits that are bound to be enjoyed by a hospital that installs good lighting.
Patient Health Support
A quick search on the internet will tell you that LED lighting can set the mood in different settings. The best part about such kind of lighting is that it can be adjusted to different concentrations and temperatures to affect the mood of patients positively.
For instance, dimmed lights signify that it is time for patients to retire to their beds and rest after a long day of receiving visitors and interacting with medical personnel. Brighter lights in the morning are supposed to make patients more lively and ready for a new day.
Enhances Security and Prevents Accidents
What is the first area that you encounter when getting into a hospital either as a visitor or as patient? Most people would say the parking lot or the reception area, which is true for most facilities. Now, imagine a dimly lit parking or reception area. Chances are that you will encounter a fall or slip accident since you are not familiar with the area. Worse still, a dimly lit parking lot can harbor muggers and the like.
Of course, that would not be ideal and that is why it is necessary to have good lighting installed.
Boosts Performance
Perhaps you do not know this but medical personnel function better under proper lighting. Some studies show that poorly lit night-shift conditions can make decision-making and caregiving stressful and difficult.
The staff at any healthcare facility requires adequate and quality lighting to perform their tasks as expected without straining.
What Features Should Hospital Lighting Have?
At this point, you are probably wondering what good lighting at a healthcare facility should look like. The following are some of the features you need to look out for.
Energy Efficiency
Did you know that the lighting control system selected by a hospital plays a crucial role when it comes to the facility’s upkeep? A hospital has many illumination points and that translates to high-energy consumption and equally high power bills.
To counter that, a hospital can choose to use LED technology in its daily running to guarantee energy efficiency and lower power bills.
Optimal Light Levels
Just as we have previously stated, hospital staff need efficient lighting to conduct research and check up on patients among other things. It is also important to note that optimal lighting levels boost alertness to ensure that all tasks are performed accordingly.
Anti-Glare Properties
Have you ever stopped to think and realized that most patients often stare at their ceiling because they have nothing better to do? Since this is the case, the lighting used should be anti-glare to ensure that the setting is comfortable and safe for the patient’s eyes.
The lighting in waiting rooms and patient wards should also come in a design that sets a soothing ambiance. This will reduce anxiety levels in patients and put in place the ideal conditions for them to get treatment.
What Areas in Healthcare Facilities Need Special Lighting?
As you already know, hospitals welcome patients with different conditions. As such, it is important to know what areas require special attention in terms of lighting. Let us look at the three major ones.
Theatre Rooms
A hospital’s operating room needs to have the right atmosphere and lighting has a part to play in that. The ideal lighting for a theatre room should neither be bright nor too dim. It should be just enough for surgeons to focus on what they do and minimize errors.
Poor lighting in operating rooms also leads to time wastage and unnecessary running of machines. It is, therefore, necessary to get the correct kind of lighting as it will help save costs and time.
Generally, a white light will suffice in the operating room simply because it provides better visuals compared to other light colors like yellow or blue that make it hard to detect things like tissue color changes.
Hospital Beds
Patients need to be comfortable for their entire stay at a hospital especially because they have their health to worry about. One of the best ways to guarantee their comfort is by having lights installed for their beds. Once that is done, ensure that the lighting installed there can be adjusted to suit their preferences. Different patients have different needs so if they want to dim the lights to read a book or completely shut it off so that they can sleep, their hospital bed light should facilitate that.
While at it, you should ensure that the lighting used for bed lighting is energy-efficient to avoid high operational costs.
Direct and Indirect Lighting
Hospital bed lighting should be adjustable because it needs to meet the different needs of different patients. However, overhead lighting should come with particular light intensity. What you need to know here is that indirect light illuminates upwards and provides gentle lighting for overall vision while direct light illuminates downwards with greater focus.
Indirect lighting can be used at night when the patients are sleeping and no doctors are pacing up and down hallways while direct light can be used during the day by nurses and doctors to examine patients, read reports, or even administer medicine.
Final Thoughts
As you can see, there is a solid relationship between lighting and healthcare facilities. The key takeaway here is that lighting can be used to set the right mood in hospitals. With this guide at hand, it should be easier to install the right lighting for different areas in a hospital.