They say that music soothes the savage breast and now there's growing evidence that art might soothe the fevered brow.
Cape Cod Hospital is counting on it, starting with a commitment to enrich the artistic environment of its new multi-story Marian G. and Stephen P. Mugar Building,
This is in line with a growing universal trend based on research verifying that patients in such environments have fewer complaints overall, take less medication, and have shorter hospital stays. As a welcome "side effect," it's found that there are staff benefits as well: namely less stress, fewer mistakes and reduced turnover.
When someone is admitted to a hospital, a certain measure of stress can accompany the experience. The environment can seem foreign and disorienting. One goal is to bring familiar imagery indoors in an effort to dismantle some of that stress. Artworks not only can provide a welcome distraction to patients, but also to their families and visitors.
Dr. James Butterick, Medical Director at Cape Cod Hospital, agrees that "in recent years hospital leaders, physicians and patients have discovered that art in the hospital environment can help patients deal with their illnesses more effectively and possibly return to full functioning earlier. Healing art can be as simple as viewing pictures on the wall to help soothe the stress of waiting for a procedure."
As an example, Cape Cod Hospital has installed at the entry to the Mugar Building a 7-foot cast stainless steel sculpture, See How She Schoons, by David Lewis of Osterville. The outdoor garden courtyard also includes sculpture, with blown glass wall sculpture that lights from within, and smaller, sometimes whimsical sculptures nestled into the planting beds. The corridor that connects the old building to the new has welcoming stained glass windows and three series of ceramic tiles that represent the Cape's botany and biology. The conference center walls also contain glass artworks.
Each of the 30 patient rooms on each floor has two or more prints selected primarily from among artists with some Cape connection. The corridors have photographic images representing each of the 15 Cape towns, and other mixed media ranging from weaving and fiber arts to ceramics.
Even the patient bathrooms have handmade pictorial ceramic tiles or glass tiles with floral photographic images. The range of artistic styles is broad but there is the unifying theme of visual references to the Cape.
Not incidentally, abstract imagery generally has been avoided since it can be unsettling to patients taking certain medications, and also because it can be more challenging to understand or relate to. The object is to provide calm, not confusion.
Curated by Wilkins Art Associates, the collection at Cape Cod Hospital has been funded entirely through donations from community members (cash or works from their own collections) and some artists even have volunteered to donate their own works. In all cases, art works are screened for quality and suitability.
Incidentally, in the current "old" lobby of the hospital, there hangs a mobile created by Arthur Bauman of Harwich, donated by hospital staff members in memory of two AID patients.
The plan is for the rest of the hospital eventually to be similarly decorated.
Thanks to an agreement with Skylight Healthcare Systems of San Diego, patients at Cape Cod Hospital may now, in a sense, be "wired" to the Internet as well as to the usual monitoring devices.
Skylight is a provider of interactive patient system technology that provides state-of-the-art information, communication and entertainment services. Starting this spring, the majority of the hospital's patient rooms have been equipped with this contemporary in-room television system.
With Skylight's ACCESS Interactive Patient System under way, televisions in Cape Cod Hospital's patient rooms will be transformed into multi-media centers for each patient, providing bedside access to a range of key hospital information, an on-demand educational video library and immediate access to patient support departments, such as concierge services. Entertainment and communication options at the bedside will include Internet connectivity, Hollywood movies, music and games.
In another high-tech development, Cape Cod Healthcare in January announced creation of a separate, wireless network that can be used by doctors, patients and visitors at both Cape Cod Hospital and Falmouth Hospital. The new network enables patients, family members and doctors to use their laptops at the hospital to connect to their computers at home or in their offices, without using wires.
"Wireless networking (also called WiFi) has a lot of advantages," said Peter Read, Director of Information Services at Falmouth Hospital, who spearheaded this project. "They're unobtrusive because the technology allows information to travel over the air. It is convenient and it provides hospital visitors with free internet access. Additionally, since it is a separate network, it does not impact any of the computers or records at the hospital at all."
To access this new network, the patient or visitor needs a laptop computer with a wireless network card.