Sustainable healthcare waiting room transformation; How to design a therapeutic waiting room at healthcare facilities

Abstract

With high hygiene, safety, and functional requirements, public spaces in healthcare facilities often look impersonal and lack warmth. Calm, cold colors, and airport-like benches can be seen at almost any waiting room in healthcare facilities. Do those function-prioritized choices help people going through their journey there, which are often accompanied by some painful or other negative feelings? In addition, people visit hospitals with an uncertain state of mind. They might not be familiar with the process of the visit. Many questions appear, such as where is the check-in, what is the drop in procedure?... There are many challenges in healthcare facility design, such as high hygienic standards, safety, and accessibility requirements. Though many demands come from the healthcare system, architects could still make an effort to improve the space quality in certain aspects, such as create easy way-finding. In this way, create a better visit experience. In waiting rooms, the state of uncertainty is quite high for visitors. This study investigates the potential of waiting room design in healthcare facilities, proposing that these spaces serve not merely as transitional zones but as integral ingredients of the therapeutic environment. Through a literature review of the EBD 2020 report (Chalmers Centre for Healthcare Architecture [CVA], 2024), I summarized sensory and spatial intervention suggestions towards a therapeutic waiting room. In the study of several high-quality waiting rooms, some design strategies are found to be similar to my intervention suggestions. I applied the suggestion to transform the sampling waiting room at Sahlgrenska Hospital. To show the diverse uses of intervention suggestions, I used sensory and spatial intervention design strategies to create one minimal and one holistic intervention. There are certainly many non-architectural opinions about the cost of such a gesture in public spaces in healthcare facilities, such as using the budget to provide more support for staff. But a little extra funding could make a great change and benefit patients, their companions, and the staff. This discussion will be nonstop. I sincerely hope my work could remind people that everyone in healthcare facilities, even the patients’ companions, deserves care.