Health Care Fine Art

Challenging Art Project: Long Term Acute Care

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One of the winners in the contest for the "most challenging art project" was the HealthCare Architect Jeffrey Yentz. This is the text that Jeffrey submitted:

There is a new healthcare paradigm and that is the hospital within a hospital concept which drives the aesthetic "bus" of an LTACH (long term acute care hospital).  With an aging population that is sicker then a typical patient prescribed to be discharged; the federal government has agreed there should be a unique inpatient environment affording a length of stay approaching 26 days (versus the norm of 4).

The challenge is to create an environment that stimulates, inspires, and motivates.  One such way is to accomplish said goal is by introducing artwork that with subtle inferences enhances said motivation.

The goal is to create a sense of self trust and self worth during the course of recuperation so that the patient is inclined to return home healthy versus attempting to cling to every "free" day within a hospital environment.

How is this accomplished?

We emphasized photographic images in lieu of framed poster art. Traditional art inherently elicits an emotional gleaning but does not reflect the reality of the world the healthcare clientele will be returning to.  Plus, much of available artwork does not speak to the united nations sort of clientele that befalls the contemporary reality:  different cultures, different races, different beliefs, ages, sexes, etc.  Carefully selected photos however reflect both an honesty and personality that all can relate to especially if the images are from in and around the region. The result is a united nations imagery for a united nations clientele.

One interesting unanticipated turn of events was the treatment of photographic images.  To frame or not to frame.  In other words, to transpose the photographic image onto a canvas or to have that product hung versus the traditional framing.  A juxtaposition is what transpired. Clientele leaning to the geriatric side of the patient population much preferred the framed scenario because it made them feel like there were looking through a window .. which invariably is what they do for the most part when they are at home.  They simply do not opt to traverse outside all that much.  This means their world is akin to looking through a looking glass.  However clientele (not up in years) preferred a tactile aesthetic presentation (the canvas option) because their world is very much getting out in the world and the canvas scenario afforded more connectivity to their world's features and elements.

Since a hospital staff cannot predict the profile of patient about to be a denizen on an LTACH environment we could not "segregate" an aesthetic zone for the framed clientele versus the canvas clientele.  So in the final resolve there was a "leap frog" approach that annotated every other corridor piece would be of type "one" and the next as type "two".  This appeased each category of clientele BUT also represented a therapeutic motivator for the patient who needed to get up and about.  So in lieu of the traditional motivational flooring "squares"/patterns we could keep the floor patterning clean and leave the motivation to the wall treatments.

Jeffrey Yentz AIA is the Corporate Architect for Centra Health/Virginia Baptist Hopital in Lynchburg Virginia. As an award, he has received a brand new copy of HealthCare Spaces 4

Why is Modern Art Flat? Part 2

Gotham News by Willem de Kooning, 1955, oil on canvas

Today I will finally get a chance to see the art exhibit "Action/Abstraction" at the St. Louis Art Museum. These abstract paintings epitomize what it means for a painting to be flat. Since experts consider both "flat" and "abstract" to be wrong for art in healthcare I thought it might be useful to explore what those terms mean and where they came from.

Richard Lacayo's recent blog post explored this: 

Greenberg took the dialectic, the idea of an historically inevitable path, and applied it to painting. He saw (and urged on!)... a final distillation of developments he identified as having been in motion since Manet. Those were chiefly the expulsion of all representational imagery and an advance towards pure flatness, the basic condition of "the picture plane", also known as the canvas. No more paintings as "pictures", as windows into a scene. From now on paintings would be arrangements of color and form on a flat surface.

This quote is from Time Magazine's blog "Looking Around" which reviewed the art exhibit "Action/Abstraction".

There is an excellent article reviewing this exhibit in the September issue of Art in America. It is called "Guardians of the Avant-Garde" and was written by Richard Kalina.

The question "Why is Modern Art Flat?" was also covered on a post in the summer of 2007. To read it, click here.

Lighting is Everything !

What a difference proper lighting makes!

To properly display art in a hospital, the first thing to ask is "What lighting will the picture have?"

This point was made crystal clear to me the first time I exhibited in a gallery with a quarter-million dollar lighting system. I was stunned by how much better my pictures looked; better than I had ever seen them. It was as if they were properly dressed for the first time. The pictures just seemed to pop; better contrast, better color, better presence.

But you don't have to use such a fancy computer-operated system. Just a few inexpensive spot lights can make all the difference, as the picture above demonstrates. This is a recent installation in Virginia with one of my canvas prints (Lotus-Back 7558). 

This picture was taken with Norm Brinkman's iPhone.

Tara Hill dicusses Color in HealthCare

Interior Designer Tara Hill 

Tara Hill discussed how to best use color in Hospitals in the Sept/Oct 2008 issue of HC&O News. To read the article, click here. Tara is a recognized expert in the use of color in healthcare.

When asked about interior colors for adult patients she wrote:

I always go back to the patient population and what is appropriate for each population. If the population can withstand saturated color, I find that people respond to a stimulating environment. The quickest and easiest way to create a stimulating environment is with colors. We know that a stimulating environment often promotes healing.

Tara explained the trend she saw toward the use of big, graphic and colorful images in HealthCare in a post on this blog last year. click here.

There is also an article about Tara's Corian Healing Colors Collection click here.

Tara R. Hill, ASID, is a registered interior designer and is the founder of Littlefish Think Tank.

The Winner: Incorporating Faith Based Artwork into the Modern Healthcare Environment

One of the pictures from the winning installation.

Eva Payne won the contest to describe her most challenging healthcare art project and how she solved it. The problem she dealt with was incorporating faith-based artwork into the modern healthcare environment. Here is what she wrote:                   

Artwork selection may be the most subjective area of an interior designers work.  Although many studies exist which suggest that certain subject matter and color palettes may aid in the creation of the healing environment, selling those concepts to a rural, up and coming faith based hospital administrative staff is another matter. 

Artwork selection has been the most contentious ongoing issue with a client wishing to focus primarily on their faith mission.  As a community hospital the budget was not available to commission artwork, and most prints and lithographs currently available with a Christian theme are not particularly sophisticated artistically. Given this lack of quality images it is quite difficult to assemble an art package large enough to address all of the needs of a hospital.  After working through several art consultants and a selective hospital art committee we were able to compromise in several ways.

A few images of churches and crosses were utilized; bible verses were inscribed in mats under peaceful landscape images, in lieu of artwork in some areas metal letters were used simply with the words such as, “Faith”, “Hope”, and “Love” from Corinthians I.  Moving in this direction made the committee more comfortable with using some botanical images alone to evoke a soothing, nature oriented theme with photographs of flowers and regional landscapes.  Although getting to this solution was quite trying at times, the project achieved both the goal of inspiring patients and visitors with the Christian message while creating a modern healing environment.

Eva said that the bible verses under the images are a little hard to read on the snapshot shown about - but they are there.

Eva Payne  ASID IIDA  LEED AP is an Interior Designer at TRO Jung|Brannen in Birmingham Alabama. She is a senior associate.

I have already packed up her award, a brand new  signed-copy of Jain Malkin's essential new book - A Visual Reference for Evidence-Based Design. A $200 value.

Picking the winner was difficult. There were many excellent entries. The entries were so good that I decided to give awards to two other contestants. The two runners up (Jeffrey Yentz and Angela Ahrens) will each be gettign a brand new copy of HealthCare Spaces 4.

Thanks to all who entered the conest!

Leigh Fogle Interview

Leigh Fogle owns and manages one of the fastest growing companies involved with art for HealthCare in the Southeast: Fogle Fine Art. I called her this week to ask her some questions about the business.

How has the current economic downturn affected your business?

We started seeing a slowdown in the 3rd quarter of 2007. Small companies like ours started to feel the downturn before the larger companies got hit.
 
Our business has three sides, retail, corporate and healthcare. The corporate work has had the biggest hit; especially the banks. Our bank business is gone. High-end retail has remained strong. Our healthcare business is fine. However, we are bracing for a possible downturn in Healthcare Art budgets over the next few years. Hospital construction will continue, but if inflation goes up (as we expect) then the hospitals will have less money to devote to Art. Art budgets will be cut.

 
Tell me a little about Fogle Fine Art. How did you get into this?

I started college at DePauw University with a major in economics; I’ve always loved numbers. But numbers weren’t enough, I love working with people and I love art, so I switched to Indiana University. There I earned a BA with a degree as an Art History major. I minored in psychology and studio art.
 
Right after graduation my husband, a musician, convinced me to move to Jacksonville, Florida.

How did the company start and how has it changed over the years?

In 1994, one year after moving to Jacksonville, I started Leigh Fogle Fine Art. I bought a used Matt-cutter and  my husband (Bryan) and I started the business in our house. Our focus was providing framing and poster art for corporate clients.
 
In 1996 we got an SBA loan and leased 3,600 square feet of office space. We also changed the name to Fogle Fine Art and Accessories. Business grew rapidly so in 2001 we leased the adjacent office to expand our space to 6,000 square feet.
 
Healthcare became an increasing focus starting in 2003. Jacksonville was a referral hub for healthcare with facilities like Mayo Clinic and Shands. We worked with them and that became a special interest of mine.
 
In 2005 we moved to our current location. It is bigger (10,000 square feet) and it is in a better location to hold events (we have a lot of events in the gallery).

 
Why are you drawn to art for healthcare?

My interest goes back many years. Even in the 7th grade I remember writing a school paper on the psychological impact of color. With my background in art and psychology in college, I considered Art Therapy as a career move in 1994.
 
Art in hospitals affects people more than corporate art. I don’t treat it as a “product”, but rather I approach the work as a partner with the hospital. Often I involve local artists to reach out to the local community.

 
How has your staffing changed over the years?

In 1994 there were just two of us. In 1996 we had expanded to 4. In 2001 we had grown to 12 employees, but most of them were part-time. Today we have 8 full-time employees and 2 or more part-time employees. We intentionally want to stay small. I want to stay small enough to be “hands on”.

 
What geographic area do you serve?

We serve the entire Southeastern United States and plan to stay within that region. Since framing is such a big part of our business (60-70%), shipping the framed art becomes a major issue. By focusing on the Southeast we can keep down shipping costs and be more available to our clients.
 
Recently my husband has gotten a full-time job as a songwriter in Nashville. This means  I will be spending more time in Nashville which is perfect to better serve the Southeast. I had already been working with companies based in Nashville (Earl Swenson, Gresham Smith and HCA). Now that I will be there more I can better serve them.

What percentage of your business is HealthCare

20 to 25% and growing.

Do you refer to Evidence-based Art when helping a HealthCare client come up with an art program?

I am not an expert on Evidence-based Design (EBD) yet, but I’m learning about it. I tend to go with my gut and my background in Art History.

I am aware of the studies done at Texas A&M showing that art depicting clear, unambiguous nature scenes helps patients recover faster and with less pain medication. Crisp, clear photographs are always powerful as the viewer can put themselves into the picture, so to speak.

Some research on Evidence-based Art suggests that abstract art is inappropriate for patient care areas. What is your opinion?

Even though I like abstract art, I agree. In patient care areas representational art that is calm and peaceful is important. But I think that even more important than subject  matter is color. Blues and greens are the colors of nature and these work much better in healthcare.
 
In other parts of the hospital I think it is fine to bring in abstraction. Often I like to see a transition to abstraction when going from patient care areas to public areas. One way to do this is to use representational images of nature are close up and hence tend to read as abstract; like images of water.

Fogle Fine Art & Accessories
3312 Beach Blvd.
Jacksonville FL 32207
www.foglefineart.com
(800) 298-4828

Green Design - a Hoax?

It seems that all HealthCare Design projects and products are "Green" these days. Are they really good for the environment or is it just a big hoax for the PR effect?

Thomas Friedman's new book: "Hot, Flat and Crowded" argues that most of what we call "green" today is just fluff to make us feel good without really doing anything meaningful:

I've heard so many people saying, "We're having a green revolution". Of course, there is certainly a lot of green buzz out there. But whenever I hear that "we're having a green revolution" line I can't resist firing back: "Really?, Really? A green revolution? Have you ever seen a revolution where no one got hurt? That's the one we're having, everyone's a winner, nobody has to give up anything, and that adjective that most often modifies "green revolution" is "easy." That's not a revolution. That's a party. ... mostly a costume party. It's all about looking green...

Even hospital art is trying to go green. I've covered the idea of green framing and green artists on other posts. Most "Green Design" in healthcare is a hoax, a harmless hoax.

There are exceptions. Recently I met Richard Dallam, partner with design firm NBBJ. He explained how their new office at Alley24 was green in many ways: lighting, ventilation and sustainability. For their efforts they were awarded an LEED Gold rating. He is designing hospitals using the same principles. Richard commented:

It's unfortunate that so many of the good intentions relating to designing a healthier, less environmentally impactful built environment are surrounded by the cloud of "hot air."  There are some legitimately helpful things being done in design that will help the design and construction industries have a substantially lower impact on the environment.

If you want to move from symbolic gestures to meaningful action on green issues, read this book. It is remarkably well written and fairly easy to read for such a ponderous topic. It's easy to see why he has already won three Pulizer Prizes.

What the heck is Social Networking?

What is Social Networking and how might it relate to the use of Art in HealthCare?

At this point I have to say that I "don't get" Social Networking. I know it is surging in popularity, especially with young people, but should I pay attention to it?

My good friend Steve Mays insists that it is time to take a look. Steve has a good record as a digital media guru. He was the one who encouraged me to get into Podcasting a couple of years ago. That resulted in 50 weekly interviews on the Living Healthy Podcast. They are still online, to listen to them click:www.livinghealthypodcast.com

Steve was also the one who encouraged me to start this blog (HealthCareFineArt.com). Not only did he encourage me, he helped me set it up and still offers suggestions on how to make it more useful.

Now Steve is telling me to check out Twitter.

It is hard for me to see why I would want to do this; do I really want to stay connected online that much? Why would anyone care about what I'm doing right that second? However, Steve seems to have a good sense of future trends; he might be right.

To test this out I have signed up for:

• Twitter
• LinkedIn
• Facebook
• MySpace

Could a community of geographically dispersed people interested in the use of Art in HealthCare form an online community? We will see.

The chart at the top of this page reveals one problem.The people using Social Networking now tend to be under the age of 30. Most of the people involved with Art in Healthcare are older than that; I'm 56. Will people of my generation embrace this? I remain skeptical, but I will give it a try.

Hospital Art in 100 years

In 100-years, could your hospital room looks like this?

Predicting the future may be impossible, but it is fun to fantasize.

If research and technology keep growing at an exponential rate, then we will be in for some interesting art. For one thing, we will know much more about what art really is best for patients. If we are at the birth of Evidence-based Art today, in a century we should actually have a lot of good evidence.

Plus, art itself will evolve. Artists might not like to admit it, but technology has a major impact on what we create. Music really took off after the industrial revolution brought us machines that could make complex musical instruments like pianos. Painting took off after the industrial revolution allowed for canvas to be mass produced and for paint to be put into tubes.

Digital imaging is not quite two decades old, but it's impact is already huge. Imagine how that might change in the next century.

Virtual reality would be the most obvious ways for art to evolve. If views of nature are good, how much better would being immersed virtual nature like the picture above? It is not too far-fetched to imagine that virtual reality would evolve beyond just images and sound and incorporate our other senses.

Your hospital room would be transformed into a 3D space complete with sound, touch and smell. You could feel the gentle breezes and smell the wildflowers that are blooming at your feet. You can reach out and touch them. Not only would you see the stream above flowing, but you could hear it and dip your hand into it.

Today we have a glimpse of interactive virtual reality with Second Life. Could such technology evolve so that friends and family could visit in a virtual way that felt real?

Or, perhaps in 100 years we won't need hospital art because we will no longer need hospitals.

I sure hope I am around to see the changes...

Does Art spread Superbugs?

Superbugs in hospitals have everyone scared; and for good reason. Doctors and researchers fear that these bacteria may become entrenched in hospitals, threatening the very patients that go there for treatment.

Understanding Superbugs is important for Designers. Jain Malkin in her new book wrote: "Infection control is such a big issue today; it has to be the No. 1 thing that architects and designers understand."

To see if the art in hospitals might cause infections I contacted an expert: Mark D. Winton, MD. Dr. Winton is a board-certified specialist in infectious disease. When I worked as a Family Practice doctor I always referred the cases that stumped me to him. The following is based on an email interview we had this week:

Can art prints contribute in any meaningful way to the spread of hospital-acquired infections?

Not that I am aware of. They are no more potential fomites than the walls.

Should hospitals attempt to disinfect art prints? If so, how?

No disinfection is needed. The chance of art prints retaining resistant organisms is very small. The pigments in paint (and inks) tend to be antibacterial in nature.

How likely is other hospital art (sculpture, water walls, backlit panels, paintings) to contribute to hospital acquired infections?

Very low risk.

What are the major contributors to all hospital-acquired infections, especially with superbugs?

• Instrumentation (putting devices in patients)
• Poor hand washing

Based on the etiology, Urinary tract infections from Gram-Negative rods is common, and bloodstream infections by coagulase-negative Staphylococcus, Enteric GNR, and fungi, nosocomial pneumonias related to ventilators, it seems as if the major reason is instrumentation.

Hospital staff hands I would think would be common. Doctors are notorious for poor hand washing.

Overuse of antibiotics contributes.

Hospital equipment, such as foley catheters, IV catheters, thermometers and Blood Pressure cuffs.

Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) infections in the hospital seem to be related to invasive procedures, and to colonized hospital staff, rather than to floors, walls, sculptures, desk surfaces or glass doors.

Clostridium difficile spores tend to be gravity driven to collect on the floor, or carpets. They tend to be focused on the floors and beds in patient rooms, not in common areas like cafeterias or lobbies. I don't know of any outbreaks involving these areas.

Carpet can hold on to molds like Aspergillus, and can cause problems in immunocompromised hosts. We used to see a lot of carpet on the floors and walls in hospitals, but not so much any more.

The current issue of The New Yorker has an article called "Superbugs: The new generation of resistant infections is almost impossible to treat". click here to read it. That is where I found the illustration by Bruce McCall at the top of this post.

Note: there were many technical terms used in the interview. I've provided hyperlinks to explain them. Just click on the underlined words.