The need to realize a monograph on "social aspects in healthcare facilities” becomes a key-point since the new trends in new hospitals’ planning and design or renovation of an existing health structure require that all the processes must rotate around the user and his needs. Hospital, since its origins, represents the social community and, in the socio-cultural context, the return to the values of interdependence and solidarity. Moreover, it embodies the permeability and the availability of entertainment and cultural activities in order to respond to the community’s demands. In fact, healthcare facilities should be oriented to the patient, providing system of diagnostic and therapeutic processes focused on the solution of health issues and able to meet the daily needs and rights of the patient: information, user-centered environments, safety, comfort, privacy, not excessive promiscuity with other users and the opportunity to meet his relatives should be ensured to each patient. “Social aspects” mean the possibility to guarantee the central role of the patient, taking into consideration also the workers and the high stress they undergo. In this way hospital’s spaces must be designed thinking to users and then considering the furniture, colours, quality of the materials, signage, sounds, temperature, humidity, ventilation, brightness, view, cleanliness and hygiene. All these parameters should communicate warmth and friendliness, thinking that health means the whole physical, mental and social wellness and not merely the absence of disease. In this context, it is obvious to highlight the innovative studies of R. Ulrich in the 80s about Evidence Based Design, focused on the principle that built environment produces psychological effects and influences the users’ behaviour through measurable clinical results. Nowadays, it is necessary a multidisciplinary approach for the design and managing healthcare structures in order to link different skills and needs. It is fundamental that several disciplines (medicine, architecture, engineering, technology, design, etc.) should be adapted to take into account the comfort, meant as the perception and quality of the spaces [6], for the user, who is recognized both in patient, visitor or worker. The research of factors, that define the health, shifts the attention from a sanitary model, focused on the individual, to a social model, where health is the result of socio-economic, cultural and environmental aspects or indirectly related to the specific characteristics of the urban settlement. Well-being is not anymore related only to the field of the health, but it is an important aim, strongly influenced by the context in which people live. The choice to deal with “social aspects” related to healthcare facilities through multidisciplinary research, aims to fill the contemporary lack of the State of the Art to propose works that take into consideration the improvement of the user’s experience inside the hospital and do not involve only the health care fields. The factors considered regards the perception of users, qualitative and quantitative studies and space’s analysis, ad hoc questionnaires for users and workers, etc. in order to underline and understand benefits that users and works can achieve. For this reason, the monograph is composed by several articles written by experts and research groups that are addressing the social-health issues in different forms and at different scales.

Preface. Social aspects and well‑being for improving healing processes’ effectiveness

CAPOLONGO, STEFANO
2016-01-01

Abstract

The need to realize a monograph on "social aspects in healthcare facilities” becomes a key-point since the new trends in new hospitals’ planning and design or renovation of an existing health structure require that all the processes must rotate around the user and his needs. Hospital, since its origins, represents the social community and, in the socio-cultural context, the return to the values of interdependence and solidarity. Moreover, it embodies the permeability and the availability of entertainment and cultural activities in order to respond to the community’s demands. In fact, healthcare facilities should be oriented to the patient, providing system of diagnostic and therapeutic processes focused on the solution of health issues and able to meet the daily needs and rights of the patient: information, user-centered environments, safety, comfort, privacy, not excessive promiscuity with other users and the opportunity to meet his relatives should be ensured to each patient. “Social aspects” mean the possibility to guarantee the central role of the patient, taking into consideration also the workers and the high stress they undergo. In this way hospital’s spaces must be designed thinking to users and then considering the furniture, colours, quality of the materials, signage, sounds, temperature, humidity, ventilation, brightness, view, cleanliness and hygiene. All these parameters should communicate warmth and friendliness, thinking that health means the whole physical, mental and social wellness and not merely the absence of disease. In this context, it is obvious to highlight the innovative studies of R. Ulrich in the 80s about Evidence Based Design, focused on the principle that built environment produces psychological effects and influences the users’ behaviour through measurable clinical results. Nowadays, it is necessary a multidisciplinary approach for the design and managing healthcare structures in order to link different skills and needs. It is fundamental that several disciplines (medicine, architecture, engineering, technology, design, etc.) should be adapted to take into account the comfort, meant as the perception and quality of the spaces [6], for the user, who is recognized both in patient, visitor or worker. The research of factors, that define the health, shifts the attention from a sanitary model, focused on the individual, to a social model, where health is the result of socio-economic, cultural and environmental aspects or indirectly related to the specific characteristics of the urban settlement. Well-being is not anymore related only to the field of the health, but it is an important aim, strongly influenced by the context in which people live. The choice to deal with “social aspects” related to healthcare facilities through multidisciplinary research, aims to fill the contemporary lack of the State of the Art to propose works that take into consideration the improvement of the user’s experience inside the hospital and do not involve only the health care fields. The factors considered regards the perception of users, qualitative and quantitative studies and space’s analysis, ad hoc questionnaires for users and workers, etc. in order to underline and understand benefits that users and works can achieve. For this reason, the monograph is composed by several articles written by experts and research groups that are addressing the social-health issues in different forms and at different scales.
2016
social aspects, humanisation, comfort, users’ perception
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Utilizza questo identificativo per citare o creare un link a questo documento: https://hdl.handle.net/11311/978010
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