The pandemic has confirmed a higher want to handle caregivers’ private office well being, each bodily and psychological, as a part of facility design. Within the HERD Journal survey, “Code Lavender: Designing Healthcare Areas to Improve Caregiver Wellness,” 80 p.c of survey responders stated that employees restorative areas are extra essential than ever. Earlier efforts to give attention to employees well-being in healthcare design have included employees respite rooms, outside areas, and offstage areas for employees to decompress and calm down.
One other idea, Code Lavender, is gaining renewed consideration in mild of present occasions. This rapid-response protocol for caregivers experiencing acute stress, or psychological or emotional exhaustion, focuses on disaster intervention moderately than burnout prevention and is a technique to instantly handle a nerve-racking occasion to keep away from nervousness, PTSD, and desensitization. As a part of this system, a employees member can obtain help from a Code Lavender staff, which might include representatives from the spiritual-care and healing-services departments, plus different hospital-based help companies, together with music remedy, wellness, ethics session, and artwork remedy. Moreover, a Lavender Room is a versatile area that’s meant to help Code Lavender occasions, which might embrace holistic, therapeutic, and religious practices equivalent to Reiki, meditation, aromatherapy, acupressure, or prayer.
At UCI Well being’s new Medical Heart-Irvine (UCIMC), scheduled to open in Could 2025, nursing management prioritized the inclusion of Lavender Rooms as a part of an enhanced employees surroundings, which additionally contains team-based workspaces, staff-only terraces and ranges, and amenity-laden lounges.
The UCIMC Lavender Rooms are situated on each affected person flooring, away from the nurses’ station and in areas that supply full-height home windows with unfettered views of the adjoining San Joaquin Marsh. The areas are outfitted with comfy finishes and versatile furnishings, in addition to therapeutic massage chairs, music gamers, and different stress-relieving components. As a part of the protocol, employees members utilizing a Code Lavender room is not going to be referred to as again to work till they’re prepared.
“In at this time’s healthcare surroundings, caregivers are experiencing excessive ranges of psychological and emotional stress, and we have to be dedicated to creating work environments the place caregivers really feel supported and thrive,” Brooke Baldwin, chief nursing govt at UCI Well being (Irvine, Calif.), advised CO Architects in the course of the undertaking. “Lavender Rooms, as a part of the secure and supportive employees surroundings of our new medical advanced, present a spot the place caregivers can go to decompress after notably nerve-racking occasions.”
For architects accepting the problem of making therapeutic environments, Lavender Rooms are a viable choice to assist handle the day by day nerve-racking occasions for caregivers in a manner not beforehand thought-about.
Gina Chang, AIA, EDAC, is a Principal at CO Architects (Los Angeles), specializing in healthcare structure. She might be reached at gchang@coarchitects.com.