In a hallway on the outskirts of the children’s hospital at Cleveland Clinic’s main campus, there’s a series of black-and-white photographs of cats and dogs hanging in a row. When children arrive for a several-night stay, they can choose a favorite one, and a staff member will print a copy of that image to hang in their room, where it remains as a “pet” throughout the rest of their stay.
It’s little things like that that contribute to a positive patient experience beyond of the exam room, explained Joanne Cohen, executive director and curator of the Arts Program at the Clinic.
The hospital is a tough place to be, she said, which is part of why the Clinic has grown its art program so much since its creation in 2006. Now it comprises more than 4,500 pieces of art on display across all of the outpatient facilities and hospitals that are part of the Clinic’s system, some of them commissioned for specific sites. Every waiting room and every exam room has some kind of poster or painting.
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It’s part of a bigger movement to make hospital design more patient-centric. Of course there’s the idea that art can relieve stress and contribute to the healing environment, but Cohen said a collection of art contributes to the experience of patients, visitors and employees in other ways, too.
Some of the most notable pieces have become way-finding devices for staff and visitors to more easily navigate the hospital’s main campus, which is sprawled across several connected buildings on Cleveland’s east side. One of those is the Blue Berg (pictured below), which is suspended from the ceiling of the clinic’s urology and kidney institute. It’s a scaled-down interpretation of an iceberg that people seem to think resembles a kidney or a heart, she said.
The Clinic provides funding for a certain amount of artwork in each building as a line item in the budget, according to Cohen, but much of the funding for the program comes from elsewhere. Most comes from private donations, she said, but once in a while a piece becomes valuable enough that the program can sell it and use those funds to purchase new pieces.
Recently, the Clinic conducted a survey among more than 4,000 patients who had stayed two nights or more in the hospital to find out if, or how, the presence of art affected their comfort level, stress level or mood. The results were overwhelmingly positive, Cohen said, and the Clinic plans to publish those results soon.
