A Guide on Hospital Lighting

In hospitals, there are many graphic tasks with unique lighting needs. Therefore, the lighting should be intended to achieve hygiene, safety, high efficiency, and well-being of health staff and patients.

Medical personnel work under high-stress conditions. Proper lighting for hospitals and healthcare facilities is required so that these facilities can perform operations that are life or death situations for some patients. If a surgeon does not have good lighting, fatal accidents can occur.

Simultaneously, lighting plays a vital role in patients’ recovery development; proper lighting improves sleep and stabilizes the body’s circadian rhythm. In some scenarios, patients stay for long in hospitals because of poor ward lighting. Read on for exhaustive particulars on hospital lighting guidelines.

Hospital Lighting Guidelines

Operating Room

An operating room needs the right kind of lighting, which should be neither hazy nor bright, but just sufficient for the doctors to concentrate on the task at hand. Proper lighting in surgical theatres also helps save on the time required to complete a procedure.

Hence, doctors are advised to use high-quality ops room lighting so as to save time and cost. This will also guarantee better health care for patients and less pressure on doctors and staff. Depending on the operation procedure, general HDI lighting or fluorescent type lighting is preferred.

This is accompanied by numerous types of LED bulbs used in the operating theatres to enhance vision in the surgery room. Usually, true white light is used instead of any other colour such as yellow or blue since it provides a better image. Colored lights in surgery rooms make it hard to detect changes in tissue colour, but white light will provide true colour.

Hospital Bed Lighting

Hospital bed lighting should guarantee that patients feel comfortable during their visit to the hospital. Lighting that can be adjusted by the patients according to their personal preferences is always a good option in comparison to general lighting.

Patients come with diverse needs, and appreciate provisions such as a possibility to dim or put off the light entirely in order to watch television, read, or sleep. There is a necessity for energy-efficient hospital bed lighting to decrease the overall operating expenses of the facility.

The multiple lighting selection fixtures will help decrease the costs of having a simple on or off kind of hospital bed lighting option. Some of the most commonly used infirmary bed fixtures include an energy-saving reading light and a low voltage night light. This kind of low voltage night light provides adequate light for the medical staff during observations and prevent any trouble from the patients during sleep.

Consultation Room Lighting

The goal here includes achieving a comfortable lighting setting so that patients can interact well with doctors.  It should be easy for doctors to give a diagnosis using the consultation room lighting design.

The standard source of outpatient lighting is an LED lamp that is elegant and simple, with medium brightness. For a warmer relaxed atmosphere, consider a narrow beam downlight situated directly above the patient’s position.

Laboratory Section

In a lab, the primary use of the lighting is observation and homework. This setting should be bright and anti-glare. This is because the lab technicians need to concentrate on their work, and they cannot do so if the light is too bright.

Labs often have medical equipment that is sensitive to light. The lighting design should consider the essential factors that affect the lab’s general lighting environment and the impact on medical equipment.

Pharmacy

Pharmacy lighting is most often ignored, yet it is just as vital. Drugs in pharmacies might have small labelling font, or the pharmacist may be giving out drugs fast; hence, the need for high visual accuracy.

Conclusion

To sum it all up, as we have seen above, lighting in hospitals is very dependent on what is being done in the chamber, the machines in use, and plenty more besides. Therefore, a lot of professionalism is required when designing and installing these lights.