Natural lighting is a vital ingredient when creating comfortable settings, especially if the project involves a windowless space or one that has no openings towards the outside. This is often the case for facilities dedicated to healthcare, where there is a shortage of natural light and artificial lighting doesn’t help to create a sense of well-being. With its high-tech systems capable of recreating the natural experience of the sun and sky in indoor spaces, CoeLux contributes towards creating a comfortable setting and thus limit the trauma of a hospital stay and the anxiety-inducing situations linked to the claustrophobic nature of certain spaces and machinery.
Neonatal Intensive Care Ward – Mangiagalli Hospital, Milan
One project which makes the company particularly proud is the Neonatal Intensive Care Ward at the Mangiagalli Clinic in Milan, a hospital dedicated to new mums and their babies, where several CoeLux ST systems have been installed. Prof. Fabio Mosca, neonatologist and director of this ward, explains in a video interview how premature babies who spend days or even weeks in the hospital ward can benefit from the positive effects of natural light. The setting is also more pleasant for the parents who spend a lot of their time in the ward as well as the nursing staff. Prof. Mosca thinks that this new method of lighting may encounter extensive application possibilities on hospital wards owing to the positive influence on the biological effects on patients, accompanying relatives and healthcare personnel.
La Tour Hospital, Geneva
A recent project and interesting case-study as regards well-being linked to hospital facilities is the oncological radiology ward at the La Tour Hospital in Geneva, Switzerland, which opened in June 2018. Several CoeLux high-tech systems have been installed throughout the ward, including a CoeLux 60 HC in the waiting room and nine CoeLux ST Ibla in one of the bunker rooms where patients undergo cutting-edge treatments, using futuristic radiotherapy equipment and a Varian EDGE linear accelerator.
CoeLux systems are dimmable in order to accommodate the psychophysical needs of the patient throughout the entire duration of treatment. The different brightness intensity levels are controlled manually by competent staff in an adjacent control room, where other CoeLux ST Ibla systems have been installed. To begin with, the support systems are started with a warm chromatic light, and CoeLux is started with an intensity dimmed to 30 per cent; this scenario produces a calming effect on the patient. At the end of treatment, with the rise in the intensity of the brightness of CoeLux up to 100 per cent and the support lights being turned on, the patient is accompanied towards waking up.
The objective from a lighting technology perspective was to create the perception of natural and comfortable light throughout the entire ward. The medical staff, in some areas of the ward, prefer to use CoeLux systems instead of traditional lighting systems and enjoy a more pleasant and natural work environment.
