To support the development of next-generation healthcare lighting, the U.S. Department of Energy surveyed nurses to determine what’s needed in an ideal patient room lighting system and to identify opportunities for increasing energy efficiency, according to an article on the Illuminating Engineering Society website.
In August 2015, 252 nurses at four hospitals answered questions about the lighting in the patient room where they most often worked.
They worked in a newly constructed children’s hospital, an older hospital with some renovated patient rooms and two older hospitals (one urban and one suburban).
Light level was ranked as the number-one lighting attribute that affected the nurses’ ability to perform their professional duties. They commented about not having enough light for IVs and for assessment and care of skin, wounds, ulcers and lower extremities.
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