Expect plush lobbies, warm colours, couches in place of metal chairs, and video screens to distract you during an MRI.<\/p>\n
Mahajan Imaging Centre co-founder Ritu Mahajan blanches at the thought of clinical hospital interiors. \u201cWhen you are coming in for an MRI or PET-CT, you are obviously not in the best of health, and making you wait in dull clinical surroundings just adds to the stress,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n
Majahan focuses on creating innovative interiors that soothe the mind and relax the patient while meeting the stringent functional and technical requirements, she adds.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe idea is to offer interiors that do not constantly remind people of a hospital environment.\u201d<\/p>\n
The MRI room at Mahajan in Gurugram, for instance, has a floor of artificial grass, picturesque nature-themed wallpaper and gentle lighting.<\/p>\n
Across city hospitals, reception areas are morphing into hotel-style lobbies, hard metal benches are being replaced by plush couches. Blue-white lighting is giving way to soft yellow in common areas; windows are getting larger; tiles are patterned and walls, colourful.<\/p>\n
At the KJ Somaiya Hospital\u2019s year-old super-specialty centre in Mumbai, large glass windows give out onto trees planted specially outside the Intensive Care Unit and post-operative recovery rooms, which typically house patients who cannot leave their beds.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis eases the stress even for visitors and members of the staff,\u201d says hospital CEO Ramesh Daswani. \u201cNatural light and views of green outdoors have also been scientifically proven to improve health outcomes.\u201d<\/p>\n
At the Apollo Hospital in Navi Mumbai, everything from the private room doors to the lobby and reception areas have been styled after luxury hotels \u2014 elegant furniture, plush lighting, art on the walls, dark wood, open spaces and warm colours.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe attempt is to provide an environment that is relaxing. An environment that looks like a hotel or a residence is certainly more relaxing than a hospital,\u201d says chief operating officer Santosh Marathe.<\/p>\n
At the Delhi government\u2019s only paediatric hospital \u2013 the Chacha Nehru Bal Chikitsalay (CNBC) \u2013 young patients are welcomed by Goofy and Donald Duck, courtesy a Disney India initiative. Cheerful paintings made by children for an international competition also add colour to the walls.<\/p>\n
\u201cChildren play here while waiting their turn at the outpatient department or while their parents are getting medicines at the pharmacy. The idea was for the cartoons on the walls and colourful exteriors to make the hospital seem less daunting even from the outside,\u201d says Dr Anup Mohta, medical director at CNBC.<\/p>\n
At Indraprastha Apollo Hospitals, a soothing effect is created using ambient lighting, soothing music and gently moving imagery.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur patients have reported reduced anxiety and claustrophobia during their hospital visits and stays as a result of the soothing environment and prudent counselling,\u201d says Dr Anupam Sibal, group medical director at Apollo Hospitals Enterprise.<\/p>\n
Since undergoing an MRI can be a claustrophobic experience for some, Mahajan has invested in software that runs videos inside the machine during a scan.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe patients can choose the videos that they want to watch while getting their MRI,\u201d says Mahajan. \u201cOverall, our aim is that this should feel more like a home than a diagnostic centre. The era of drab white plastered walls in hospitals and clinical environments is now a relic of the past.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Expect plush lobbies, warm colours, couches in place of metal chairs, and video screens to distract you during an MRI. Mahajan Imaging Centre co-founder Ritu Mahajan blanches at the thought of clinical hospital interiors. \u201cWhen you are coming in for an MRI or PET-CT, you are obviously not in the best of health, and making […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2059,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[239],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2058","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-health"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2058","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2058"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2058\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2060,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2058\/revisions\/2060"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2059"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2058"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2058"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2058"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}