Healing Environments and the Limits of Empirical Evidence

The impact of the environment on health has been a concern to healthcare providers at least since the time of Hippocrates.¹ Healthcare providers and researchers interested in exploring the relationship of healing and the hospital environment are confronted with the predominant focus of acute care: the efficiency of treatment to stabilize and/or cure physiologic disorders. This focus is particularly evident in critical care units, where the technology, work flow, and unit design emphasize standard interventions aimed at the eradication of disease, often at the expense of more individualized and holistic healing practices. Rather than take this atmosphere for granted as the best approach to life-threatening illness, some healthcare providers would like to remake critical care units into humane places of healing that support the physical, emotional, social, and spiritual needs of each patient and family.^2,3...