What does Art have to do with Health?

A lot, if you think about it. Asian cultures have been stressing the importance of environment and ambiance on one's health and happiness for ages; feng-shui from China and vastu shastra from India being a few examples. Makes sense that the setup of our room, apartment, or house has a lot of effect on us. So why not the same for patients in hospitals? Get rid of the bland, pasty, grey walls and put in some color!

That's exactly what Women & Children's Hospital in Buffalo is doing. Through grant funding from the Oishei Foundation, the hospital is collaborating with the local Center for the Arts to sponsor

"an intensive training program facilitated by the University of Florida's CAHRE program where local invited visual artists, musicians, poets, dancers, and storytellers will be trained to work with patients, families, and staff in health-care settings as integral members of the healthcare team."

"...studies have shown that integrating the arts into these settings helps to cultivate a healing environment, support the mental and emotional recovery of patients, communicate health and recovery information, and foster positive working conditions for caregivers to improve satisfaction and retention."

The Pebble Project conducts similar health design studies on a much larger scale with multiple hospitals. I got a chance to view first hand some of the benefits when I worked at Weill Cornell Medical College in NYC. In fact, a new building called the Greenberg Center was specifically built with the findings of the project in mind. The goal is

"to create healing environments [that] can impact patient satisfaction, staff satisfaction, nurse retention, medical outcomes, safety, quality, financial performance, and more."