Courtesy of Sky Factory
Can skylights put patients at ease during exams?
June 19, 2014
by Lauren Dubinsky, Senior Reporter
Hospitals can be uncomfortable places for patients, and major efforts are underway to try to put patients more at ease.
Today, hospitals are relying on the power of skylights to relax patients before a procedure or an imaging exam. The skylights are backlight images installed on ceilings, made to give off the illusion of a real sky.
And in this new era of health care reform where patient satisfaction is front and center, products like these are becoming more popular than ever.
"The patient's satisfaction has become more important than ever," Ernesto Machado, founder and managing director at TESS, told DOTmed News.
Two major players in the market today are Therapeutic Environmental Solutions (TESS) and the Sky Factory.
Machado added that these backlit images are the "most cost efficient programs that you can use to show the patient that you're doing something on their behalf." Since it shows them that you're considerate of their emotional comfort, it makes it a "hot item" in today's market.
It all started about 30 years ago when a Harvard biologist named Edward O. Wilson published a study called "Biophilia." He explored a phenomenon called biophilic engagement, which is the notion that people seek out positive experiences in nature, and as a result, become more relaxed.
When Sky Factory opened its doors 12 years ago, they kept this idea at the forefront. "Due to our inherent need to affiliate with nature we can trigger the biophilic 'relaxation response' even in an artificial environment," David A. Navarrete Maciel, business development and public relations for Sky Factory, told DOTmed News.
The company has four different products — Luminous SkyCeilings (backlit skylight images), SkyV, (virtual skylights), Luminous Virtual Windows, (illuminated window images) and eScape, (virtual window scenes). However, the Luminous SkyCeilings are the most popular.
Sky Factory has 50 partners and has installed over 7,000 virtual skylights and windows around the world, including Japan, Australia, Europe, Latin America and the Middle East. They believe they are the leaders in the field because they are the only virtual skylight and window company that has published research in peer-reviewed journals on their products.
Two years ago, the company partnered with Texas Tech University's Neuroimaging Institute to research the neural effects of their photographic sky compositions, which are used in the Luminous SkyCeiling. The researchers used functional MRI to create brain maps of the subjects' neural activation when they looked at the photographic sky compositions and compared it with the subjects that looked at other positive, negative or neutral images.
The initial analysis uncovered that the photographic sky compositions had the same neural activation characteristics as other positive images, but they also activated other parts of the brain including the cerebellum. Those areas of the brain are often associated with experiencing extended space.
The second part of the study collected the health data throughout 2013 from patients who stayed in 10 hospital rooms at Covenant Medical Center in Texas. It compared the length of treatment and the recovery rates for patients who were in rooms that had the photographic sky compositions and those who were not.
The second part has been completed but since the study has not been accepted for publication in a research journal yet, the lead researcher requested that the company not disseminate the findings until then, according to Navarrete Maciel.
Sky Factory's main competitor is TESS. TESS was founded in 1995, with one office in the U.S. and another in Germany. The company has skylight and window backlit images but what separates them from Sky Factory is something they call the "Patient Experience."
It includes LED skylights and virtual windows but also wall murals and their Illuminations program. The program also incorporates a cartoon animation projecting onto the front of an MRI or CT scanner. Hospitals can choose a certain theme, including a beach or underwater scene, and the MRI or CT is wrapped in that particular theme or "skin".
The program has additional offerings including LED lighting to wash a room in any color, 3-D sculptures, and more. Machado said that TESS has the program installed in every state in the U.S.
But when it comes to the virtual skylights and windows, Navarrete Maciel said that what separates Sky Factory from other companies is that their products are not just backlit photography, they design what they call "illusions in nature."
They customize the images by composing them based on the scale of the room and the perspective of the patient. They use mega format digital photography, 6500 Kelvin high-color rendering index to create daylight-quality artificial light and patented elevators to recess the image from the ceiling grid to create depth. "To create this it takes a level of detail -- that is important to succeed in affecting spatial cognition," said Navarrete Maciel.
In 2011, they won the Product Innovation Award from Architectural Products Magazine and this year their Luminous SkyCeiling was the Jury Winner in the Product + Health Care category in Architizer's A+ Awards.
Today, hospitals are relying on the power of skylights to relax patients before a procedure or an imaging exam. The skylights are backlight images installed on ceilings, made to give off the illusion of a real sky.
And in this new era of health care reform where patient satisfaction is front and center, products like these are becoming more popular than ever.
"The patient's satisfaction has become more important than ever," Ernesto Machado, founder and managing director at TESS, told DOTmed News.
Two major players in the market today are Therapeutic Environmental Solutions (TESS) and the Sky Factory.
Machado added that these backlit images are the "most cost efficient programs that you can use to show the patient that you're doing something on their behalf." Since it shows them that you're considerate of their emotional comfort, it makes it a "hot item" in today's market.
It all started about 30 years ago when a Harvard biologist named Edward O. Wilson published a study called "Biophilia." He explored a phenomenon called biophilic engagement, which is the notion that people seek out positive experiences in nature, and as a result, become more relaxed.
When Sky Factory opened its doors 12 years ago, they kept this idea at the forefront. "Due to our inherent need to affiliate with nature we can trigger the biophilic 'relaxation response' even in an artificial environment," David A. Navarrete Maciel, business development and public relations for Sky Factory, told DOTmed News.
The company has four different products — Luminous SkyCeilings (backlit skylight images), SkyV, (virtual skylights), Luminous Virtual Windows, (illuminated window images) and eScape, (virtual window scenes). However, the Luminous SkyCeilings are the most popular.
Sky Factory has 50 partners and has installed over 7,000 virtual skylights and windows around the world, including Japan, Australia, Europe, Latin America and the Middle East. They believe they are the leaders in the field because they are the only virtual skylight and window company that has published research in peer-reviewed journals on their products.
Two years ago, the company partnered with Texas Tech University's Neuroimaging Institute to research the neural effects of their photographic sky compositions, which are used in the Luminous SkyCeiling. The researchers used functional MRI to create brain maps of the subjects' neural activation when they looked at the photographic sky compositions and compared it with the subjects that looked at other positive, negative or neutral images.
The initial analysis uncovered that the photographic sky compositions had the same neural activation characteristics as other positive images, but they also activated other parts of the brain including the cerebellum. Those areas of the brain are often associated with experiencing extended space.
The second part of the study collected the health data throughout 2013 from patients who stayed in 10 hospital rooms at Covenant Medical Center in Texas. It compared the length of treatment and the recovery rates for patients who were in rooms that had the photographic sky compositions and those who were not.
The second part has been completed but since the study has not been accepted for publication in a research journal yet, the lead researcher requested that the company not disseminate the findings until then, according to Navarrete Maciel.
Sky Factory's main competitor is TESS. TESS was founded in 1995, with one office in the U.S. and another in Germany. The company has skylight and window backlit images but what separates them from Sky Factory is something they call the "Patient Experience."
It includes LED skylights and virtual windows but also wall murals and their Illuminations program. The program also incorporates a cartoon animation projecting onto the front of an MRI or CT scanner. Hospitals can choose a certain theme, including a beach or underwater scene, and the MRI or CT is wrapped in that particular theme or "skin".
The program has additional offerings including LED lighting to wash a room in any color, 3-D sculptures, and more. Machado said that TESS has the program installed in every state in the U.S.
But when it comes to the virtual skylights and windows, Navarrete Maciel said that what separates Sky Factory from other companies is that their products are not just backlit photography, they design what they call "illusions in nature."
They customize the images by composing them based on the scale of the room and the perspective of the patient. They use mega format digital photography, 6500 Kelvin high-color rendering index to create daylight-quality artificial light and patented elevators to recess the image from the ceiling grid to create depth. "To create this it takes a level of detail -- that is important to succeed in affecting spatial cognition," said Navarrete Maciel.
In 2011, they won the Product Innovation Award from Architectural Products Magazine and this year their Luminous SkyCeiling was the Jury Winner in the Product + Health Care category in Architizer's A+ Awards.