Good Lighting Choices in Healthcare Spaces

Lighting is essential to any space, but in a healthcare environment it is crucial to the patients’ health and wellbeing. With patients and staff impacted by lighting around the clock, medical facilities understand the need for careful and informed lighting choices that can impact circadian rhythms, infection control, personalized lighting, and more.

Both research development and technology advancements are making lighting decisions more complex, while still meeting the changing needs of patient and staff. The following takes a look at how intentional lighting design can benefit patients and healthcare workers.

Connected lighting systems

The integration of light, sensors, and information technology creates intelligent systems networked to automatically monitor energy usage, track equipment and space utilization, and report maintenance issues in real time.

Light fixtures are used as the node in the mesh network and integral sensors can collect data for multiple systems, including those that monitor patient or staff location and hospital equipment such as wheelchairs or supply carts. Equipment requiring maintenance would be identified and scheduled for service at the best appropriate time. Room vacancies could also be coordinated with janitorial staff to minimize down times between patients, while sensors provide real-time occupancy status through a room reservation system.

Circadian response

Electric lighting to support circadian response would be fully programmed to change color and intensity to mimic the 24-hour daylight cycle. However, a local override would allow users to modify lighting to their current needs.

These systems are most effective in spaces without access to daylight where people spend long periods of time. It is equally important to also consider similar lighting needs for staff spaces as healthcare employees often work extended shifts and spend their entire workday indoors.

Electric light to aid in infection control

The annual cost of hospital-acquired infections (HAI) is staggering. It is estimated to be about $10 billion (with cost shifting to private payers) and $45 billion if cost shifting is included in the equation. That amounts to about $1 million per hospital per year. There is now lighting technology that can seamlessly aid in reducing the frequency of HAIs.

An overhead lighting system that provides light in the 405 nm, and appears visibly as violet to the human eye, has proven to be effective at killing gram-positive and gram-negative bacteria, as well as bacterial endospores, yeast, mold, and fungi.

It would seem an obvious application for surgical suites and patient rooms, but perhaps less obvious would be those spaces that are impossible to clean between each use or are in continuous use throughout the day such as emergency rooms, cafeterias, public restrooms, labs, offices, lobbies, or other public areas where people gather. While product types are somewhat limited at this time, manufacturers are applying the technology to a number of different lighting form factors beyond the ever-present 2×4.

WELL Building standards for healthcare

WELL is an evidence-based program that utilizes peer-reviewed scientific procedures to create healthy buildings. The new Version 2 includes 10 concepts: air, water, nourishment, light, movement, thermal comfort, sound, materials, mind, and community. Connected lighting systems allow for continuous monitoring of building performance, as well as the human experience.

Light concept of WELL has been expanded to include light exposure and light education, visual lighting design, circadian lighting design, glare control, enhanced daylight access, visual balance, electric light quality, and occupant control of lighting. WELL is not yet as widely adopted as LEED, but it is gaining traction. It’s encouraging to see this much emphasis on lighting, and, over time, it is expected to add value to projects.