EMP 832 H. Owens 3 credits
Creating Environments that Heal
Audience
All students including. nurses, therapists, volunteers, and anyone else involved in patient/client care and with patients/clients families
Description
Creating Environments that Heal has been intentionally designed to not only bring documented information to the clinical professional, but to move the participant into understanding their clinical and ethical accountability for the clinical environment. This involves looking at interpersonal relationships between patients and caregivers, between caregivers themselves, and between physicians, patients, and families. It addresses behavioral issues that impact how the patient perceives the quality of care, and offers strategies for pro-active changes in the current setting on both a short-term and long-term basis. This course also includes processes, which offer a direct understanding of the physiological and psychological symptoms generated by a healthcare setting.
Course Purpose
This course discusses the issues of healing environments, what is at stake in the patient/client experience, and how perceptions shape the quality and effectiveness of healthcare. Exploring how the environment must be intentionally designed to have a positive function, rather than be inconsistent and precarious in nature. For example, while the environment is experienced on all sensory levels, the auditory environment is by far the most invasive and has been most dramatically impacted by technology.
Objectives
- Students will understand the term “Healing Environment” and the epistemology of the environment in healthcare
- Students will distinguish subjective experience from empirical evidence regarding the impact of the healthcare environment on patient/client outcomes
- Students will be able to identify environmental stressors and their symptoms
- Students will become aware of the environment as it impacts attitudes, relationships, disease, and recovery
- To design the environment of care to function as a therapeutic protocol
- To investigate environmental tools that will facilitate the realization of the healthcare that heals as well as cures
- To positively impact the quality of healthcare and healing delivery on an institutional and a practitioner basis providing a continuous therapeutic presence
- To provide environment that will serve the needs of multiple generations
Topics
- The impact of the environment, both physiologically and psychologically, and the strategies for designing a healing environment
- Research in the use of music and medicine is reviewed
- Research in the use of nature, lighting, sound, and other environmental factors on health
- In addition, students have the opportunity to evaluate the current status of their work and community environments and become cognizant of their short- and long-term impact
Texts
- VanNostrand, Reinhold Innovations in Healthcare Design
- VanNostrand, Reinhold Sound Choices: Using Music to Design the Environments in which We Live, Work, and Heal
Course Packet which includes many journal articles such as:
- Biley, F. Use of Music in Therapeutic Care British Journal of Nursing, June 1992, pp 178-9
- Nivison M.E., Endresen, I.M. An Analysis of Relationships Among Environmental Noise, Annoyance and Sensitivity to Noise, and the Consequences for Health and Sleep Journal of Behavioral Medicine, June 1993, pp 257-276
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