In a recent version of AIA’s Guidelines for Design and Construction of Healthcare Facilities, access to nature is recommended.  All Planetree Designated Hospitals incorporate nature as part of their healing environments. Healthcare is seeing growing consumer engagement, requirements on patient satisfaction and the creation of healing environments in place of the old monolithic hospitals of our past.  Healthcare must connect the demands of body, mind and spirit in order to meet these modern demands. Adding nature as part of the healing environment seems like common sense. Many research findings report the following benefits of designing with nature in mind:

• Less Anxiety

• Lower Heart Rate

• Less Need for Medication

• Increased Recovery Time

• Better Overall Mood

• Decrease Length of Stay at Healthcare Facility

In Nature Center circles, Richard Louv’s book Last Child in The Woods highlights the effects of nature deficit disorder. The statistics of how far we as a society have moved away from nature are alarming. These are some of the many benefits of nature:

• Reduces symptoms of attention deficit disorder

• Increases the ability to focus

• Enhances cognitive skills

• Improves creativity and problem solving skills

• Increases physical activity

There is much in the media about the benefits of nature, too. Here are just two recent articles: Nature Walks are Good for Your Brain and Living Near Trees is Good for Your Health. The Biophilic Design movement, EcoTherapy and Experience Design demonstrates the positive emotional and physical effects of nature.

Most of the natural history world in museums and nature centers do not offer experiences that focus on the emotional and physical effects nature has to offer. Interpretive design speaks of engaging the emotions of the visitor to win their hearts and minds. If visitors learned the benefits to health and emotions that nature provides in an exhibit, isn’t there a good chance that would impact their behavior? Let’s teach them why it is healing. Why not team up with your local hospital like the Children’s Hospital of Chicago did. Let’s create environments that are nature related and are just fun, like Holliday Park of Indianapolis .   See the photos! Why not offer other services like EcoTherapy. Teach them how to bring nature into their workplaces like google. And for your more analytically minded visitors, teach them why it makes financial sense.

Have you ever visited a nature exhibit that was healing? Have you seen other communities combine museums with their healthcare community?