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Bon Secours Short Pump Emergency Center waiting room (Photo courtesy Bon Secours)
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Bon Secours Short Pump Emergency Center MRI room (Photo courtesy Bon Secours)
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The waiting room at Medarva West Creek (Photo courtesy Medarva)
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Whimsical art decorates the wall at Medarva Stony Point. (Photo courtesy Medarva)
You need a germ-free setting when you're providing health care, but you don't want a sterile environment.
That’s why architects and others who plan health care facilities seek to create an environment where people can be comfortable, a place that evokes a sense of home, not just for patients and their families, but also for the doctors, nurses and others who spend working hours there. The goal is a facility that feels warm, clean and inviting, not sterile and depressing. That means that the institutional green and stark white walls so common in such settings in the previous century are no longer ubiquitous.
“You want it to look clean. You also don’t want to feel like you are in a big, sterile box,” says Courtney Cotton, a senior account manager with California-based Office Furniture Group who has worked with the Bon Secours Health System on several projects in its Richmond facilities. “You want to create that warmth and comfort that people can experience.”
Creating an assuring environment goes beyond wall color selections. Cotton, who is a health care interior designer, cites the thinking that goes into designing a waiting room. People fidget, so you want furniture with a tactile component to the upholstery, something that can be clean and sterilized, but that has more of a homey feel than plain plastic lines of seats bolted to beams on the wall. For the walls, there should be some inviting artwork, she says, something you can look into and feel as if you can escape.
Cotton was involved in designing the Bon Secours Short Pump Emergency Center, which opened in September. She’s also involved in the refurbishing of St. Mary’s Hospital, including its cafeteria. Bon Secours works with Office Furniture Group in selecting colors of furniture and artwork for its facilities.
Cool, tranquil colors predominate at the emergency center, with plentiful blues and greens to allay the fear found in an ER or imaging setting. There are also warmer browns and beiges to go with the wood plank flooring.
Artwork depicts nature scenes, rocks, water and flowers, to create a spa effect and enhance that feeling of calm. “We really try to have it be a balance of the warm and cool together. That really creates that tranquil environment,” Cotton says.
The paint color scheme for the Short Pump center’s pediatric rooms was chosen through recommendations from the Child Life Specialist Council at St. Mary’s, a group of patients and families of patients who provided feedback. Bon Secours leadership has the final say on color choices.
Each facility is different, but that’s to be expected. There’s been some research into the impact of color choices on health, but it’s “inconclusive and nonspecific,” according to the 2004 report “Color in Healthcare Environments” by the nonprofit Coalition for Health Environments Research.
Without a consensus, it comes down to judgment calls.
Color choices for a revamping of the women’s unit at HCA Johnston-Willis Hospital are subject to a collaborative process. Roberta Tinch, the hospital’s chief operating officer, says that the planners are looking for colors that are in vogue, but timeless, or will work for at least five or six years before another refresh is in order.
Staff is asked for adjectives that describe the unit, and those words are passed to project architects, who must translate those concepts into colors. Design boards are developed and shared with staff and administrators.
Tinch says designers avoid the mauve, greens and blues that have an outdated, 1980s feel, but must also consider whether stylish choices such as grays and clean metals or dark whites that work well in homes will translate to a clinical space or a patient room. There also are the practical considerations of whether a particular paint will clean well or hold up in an institutional setting.
One project in the works is a mammography suite and its lobby. Tinch says the dark wood paneling in that space isn’t friendly or inviting, so they are taking out the wood and will instead have gray and teal walls with walnut accents for a fresher look.
The color palette and decor choices may also seek to fulfill other goals. In addition to patient and consumer comfort considerations, they may reflect corporate branding, and should also be selected with facility workers in mind, a way to project a positive environment that shows that you are attentive to their needs.
Color choices may also be used in some settings as directional or safety cues. For the VCU Health System, floor finish colors are used to emphasize safety concerns, such as different colors in MRI rooms to show staff where the magnetic pull increases, says Catherine Porzio, senior director of facilities management and construction, in an emailed statement. Color is also employed at VCU Health as a way to allay anxiety in patients undergoing imaging procedures such as an MRI or CT with the addition of colorful appliques. Colors are used liberally in areas where patients spend waking hours, says Porzio.
At Medarva’s West Creek Surgery Center, which opened in Goochland County in 2017 and was expanded in 2018, the decor features vibrant colors including purple, green and blue. Photos taken by employees while on vacation are displayed on the walls, a way to enliven the mood, and there are windows in some operating rooms, allowing natural lighting.
Such choices reflect some of the personality of the organization — playful, to a certain extent, and unafraid to be happy, according to Caleb Cox, director of business development and physician network for the nonprofit.
In the waiting room at West Creek is furniture that matches the overall color scheme, and an ongoing slide show on the widescreen televisions that features slideshows of the vacation photos, Cox says.
The facility is slightly more muted than its Stony Point facility, where some colors were chosen based on CEO Bruce Kupper’s favorite shirts. There are pink walls, green walls, paintings by local artists and lots of nature photography.
“People get a kick out of it,” says Cox. “We purposely choose colors to avoid an institutional look.”
Colorful Codes
Many health care facilities use a color code in public announcements as a way to alert staff to an event or emergency without alarming patients and visitors. Code Blue is a relatively common way to address an adult cardiopulmonary arrest, while Code Red denotes a fire. Some facilities have their own take on the codes. At HCA Chippenham and Johnston-Willis hospitals, the emergency may simply be stated in plain language, or they may use the first letter of the code. According to a statement, the HCA Capital Division, which includes the metro Richmond facilities, is working to standardize its codes in all units by eliminating the colors and the initials and relying solely on plain language statements.
