Healthy Alterations

When designing an experience, rethinking the things we take for granted has surprising impact. Hospital garments are one healthcare basic in which a little attention can go a long way: Taking a fresh look at the design of the traditional gown could make the process of treating patients more effective and make the patients themselves feel less stressed.

By David Sokol

In mid-December Traci Lamar, an associate professor of the 1,100-student College of Textiles at North Carolina State University, bounded to a lectern at the Institute for Healthcare Improvement’s (IHI) 21st Annual National Forum in Orlando. With College of Textiles dean Blanton Godfrey, the pixie-like designer regaled doctors, nurses, plus the occasional businessperson and student, with failure stories about the hospital gown.

The hospital gown as we know it is an anonymous garment—usually produced for $5 and intended to endure 50 wearings. And it is one size that fits none. “We’ve had patients report having trouble concentrating on their physical therapy, because they were so worried about keeping their gowns closed.” Lamar said several days before the presentation. Godfrey chimed in with tales of frustrated nursing mothers forced to wear a gown that opens in the back and modest patients who put on a pair of gowns front and back—doubling hospitals’ inventory and restricting doctors’ from, say, easily administering an IV.

“We’ve had patients report having trouble concentrating on their physical therapy, because they were so worried about keeping their gowns closed.”

Lamar has led the College of Textiles’ effort to redesign the gown since November 2006, when it received a $236,110 grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation to inject the flimsy garment with dignity; foundation senior project officer Rosemary Gibson originally hatched the idea in 2004, working with the Pioneer Team to identify a recipient for the funds.

The research phase of the project, known as Innovative Design of Garments for Healthcare Patients, was completed last spring. Lamar explains the lengthy process: “Essentially there’s the patient and the care provider who has to administer medical procedures, but you’ve also got a whole supply chain that doesn’t use the product but has a stake in producing it, maintaining it, and paying for it.” Working with graduate students as well as undergraduates, Lamar collected insights from all those parties. The team distributed surveys among patients and caregivers associated with partner WakeMed Health & Hospitals, held focus groups at six hospitals in North Carolina and Massachusetts, and undertook informal conversations with hospital purchasers and distributors.

One of those graduate students, Anne Porterfield, was on hand in Orlando to guide IHI attendees through break-out exercises following Lamar and Godfrey’s 38-slide PowerPoint presentation. The trio fielded comments about patient apparel’s shortcomings and how they might be addressed with design features. Lamar compares the responses against her previous data, saying, “There were no real surprises”: Attending nurses unanimously supported warmer long-sleeve gowns, while others confirmed that pockets would allow patients to roam hospital hallways without requiring a phalanx of assistants to carry their monitoring devices. She also noted a rising tide of interest in antimicrobial fabrics.

Lamar is using the IHI feedback to create a hierarchy of requirements for the gown, and she may sacrifice the least important design principles to stay competitive on price. With a hoped-for second Robert Wood Johnson grant, she and her students will take the next two years to spin those dominant criteria into a final prototype, and subject it to a regimen of lab and real-world evaluations.

Backless Hospital Gown Gets a Redesign

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Watch this recent MSNBC video that takes a look at some recent advancements in healthcare experience design, including a patient garment that makes patient dignity its top function.

David Sokol is a contributing editor at Architectural Record, Greensource, and Surface magazines; he also writes for Azure, Interior Design, and Metropolis. David is the author of The Modern Architecture Pop-Up Book (Rizzoli 2008), and he has taught at Rhode Island School of Design. He is based in New York.

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Beyond the inconvenience and discomfort caused by ill-fitting and poorly conceived patient gowns, the choice of garment in healthcare environments can actually make people sick. Taking a fresh look at the use and design of an iconic element of the healthcare experience just might help patients stay healthier and feel less stressed.

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  • Cynthia Bolwin

    iam working for a fashion designer and going to medical school iam working with my boss to come up with a new way to design gowns for the hospitals and doctores office across america. I understand that no body wants to have any parts of ther bodies exposed for the whol world to see. I want to design a gown that fits everones body shap i want it to be knee lendth so that way if an eldery person has to use a wheel chair or walker to get aroung the hospital its not getting cought on the wheels.I alos want to have the teens feel comfortable and kids as well in the gowns they have to wear on there stay in the hospital. The adults shuld feel the same way. For babies and mothers that r nursing iam going to design a gown just for them. If there are patients in physical therapy in the hospital they will also get something to make them feel comfortable. My dad had his kness replaced and all he got in the hospital was a pair of shorts. Thank u for ur time Cynthia Bolwin

  • Bets Wald

    let me know where I can buy an attractive, comfortable design and still have the IV hookups with minimum disruption. I’m anxious to steer away from the traditional rear air comditioning and institutional look.

  • Eric

    I’m hoping you will be open to taking a look at a new reusable U.S. patented patient gown. I have no doubt the gown will sell itself.

    The gown’s designer, Chantale Trouillot, is a Critical Care nurse with over 27 years nursing experience in South Florida, who saw the need for a gown designed to meet the challenges of modern medicine. The special feature of the ECT patient gown enhances nursing efficiencies, promotes positive patient outcomes, increases patient satisfaction and helps reduce the risk of hospital acquired infections (HAIs.)

    In September,2009 in his keynote address at a Supplier Symposium in Richmond, VA, the former U.S.Surgeon General, Dr. David Satcher, noted the ECT gown as the type of innovative product healthcare suppliers need to bring to the market; products that provide clinical value while reducing the overall costs of healthcare.

    ECT Solutions has partnered with a minority owned manufacturing company called American Dawn Inc and have competitively priced the ECT gown. For the cost of the typical IV gown, the ECT gown provides features and benefits that are not available in any gown currently on the market. I am confident that once you see the gown you will see the value it will bring to Patients and Hospitals.

    The ECT gown has been featured in Healthcare Purchasing News,Surgical Products and the Executive Healthcare Management.

    The ECT Patient Gown is contracted with Premier and Broadlane GPOs.

    Please visit us at http://www.ectsolutions.info

    Warm regards,
    Eric

  • Cindy Lintel

    Dear Bets, Yippee!! the gown is here! go to http://WWW.BIRTHINGOWN.COM I am a labor and delivery nurse of 26 years. I have studied fine art and design over the years as a hobby, and have put both of these schools together to create The BG. Initially designed for the woman in labor, it has also been worn by women recovering from knee and hip surgery in the Orthopedic rehab units! take a look at our website and let me know what you think! Cindy Lintel, BG&Co. Designwear for Healthcare

  • Emma Morris

    I would like to know what the %flammability on the
    Adult gowns. The child gowns tag shows 74% falmmability but none of my Adult ones show it. Let me know what you think.

    Emma Morris

  • carol Jackson

    I visist my Mom in the health and rehabilitation center in our town, my mom wears her own clothing because we take it home and wash it,she’s 93 years old, altho, her roommate on the other hand has the facility doing her laundry, and for bedtime they put her in an open back generic hospital gown,it makes me very sad, that she is not being able to maintain her dignity, in her later years of life, thank you sooo much for caring and doing something about ones feelings! I will pass your infomation on to this and other facilities, thanks again Carol Jackson:)p.s. by the way we contract out to hospitals processing laundry and sterilization Items.

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