The aesthetic dimension in hospitals—An investigation into strategic plans
Section snippets
What is already known about the topic?
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Aesthetics contributes to health and wellness.
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The aesthetic dimension is a need for the human being.
What this paper adds
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There are few concrete guidelines concerning aesthetics in somatic hospital strategy plans.
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High quality in nursing care includes the aesthetic dimension.
Data sampling
Hospitals were requested to supply their strategic plans concerning the aesthetic domain for the past 2 years. A second request was sent to those who did not respond. In the request letter, the project was described and a short summary of the investigation was given.
Sixty-four of 86 hospitals (74%) answered, providing information and copies of their strategic plans. Two hospitals submitted information by telephone and another two hospitals supplied information by letter, with no strategic plan
Results
The strategic plans were analyzed to determine whether and in what way aesthetics were addressed.
This graphic Fig. 1 illustrates the results of the analysis. Each column represents the total findings for the main categories (including subcategories) in the documents, according to their occurrences in the strategic plans.
In presenting the results, important factors will be indicated in relation to each category.
Category 1: Harmony. Subcategories are properness considered as tidiness, balance,
Discussion
By analyzing the received material, we have drawn the conclusion that very few guidelines concerning the aesthetics of hospital surroundings are finding their way into today's strategic plans. Even though aesthetics are considered important, there are very few directions given. To ensure that this area receives attention, it is necessary to have clear and concise guidelines in strategic plans, on what to do and how to do it.
To illustrate how the ideas were used in the documents, a few examples
Conclusion
The intention of this research was to determine the degree to which the aesthetic dimension is addressed in the strategic plans of Norwegian general hospitals. The aim was to find which directions and decrees the professional caring personnel and the daily management has, accordingly how to attend to the aesthetic surroundings.
We concluded that references to the 11 categories, into which the aesthetic dimension was divided to analyze the strategic plans, were almost absent from the strategic
Acknowledgement
Thanks to Oslo University College, Faculty of Nursing, for financing this research.
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