The emotional experience of patient care: a case for innovation in health care design

This paper considers recent developments in health care facility design and in the psychology literature that support a case for increased design sensitivity to the emotional experience of patient care. The author discusses several examples of innovative patient-centred health care design interventions. These generally resulted in improvements in the patient and staff experience of care, at less cost than major infrastructural interventions. The paper relates these developments in practice with recent neuroscience research, illustrating that the design of the built environment influences patient emotional stress. In turn, patient emotional stress appears to influence patient satisfaction, and in some instances, patient outcomes. This paper highlights the need for further research in this area.