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Abstract
Background Typical hospital lighting is rich in blue-wavelength emission, which can create unwanted circadian disruption in patients when exposed at night. Despite a growing body of evidence regarding the effects of poor sleep on health outcomes, physiologically neutral technologies have not been widely implemented in the US healthcare system.
Objective The authors sought to determine if rechargeable, proximity-sensing, blue-depleted lighting pods that provide wireless task lighting can make overnight hospital care more efficient for providers and less disruptive to patients.
Design Non-randomised, controlled interventional trial in an intermediate-acuity unit at a large urban medical centre.
Methods Night-time healthcare providers abstained from turning on overhead patient room lighting in favour of a physiologically neutral lighting device. 33 nurses caring for patients on that unit were surveyed after each shift. 21 patients were evaluated after two nights with standard-of-care light and after two nights with lighting intervention.
Results Providers reported a satisfaction score of 8 out of 10, with 82% responding that the lighting pods provided adequate lighting for overnight care tasks. Among patients, a median 2-point improvement on the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale was reported.
Conclusion and relevance The authors noted improved caregiver satisfaction and decreased patient anxiety by using a blue-depleted automated task-lighting alternative to overhead room lights. Larger studies are needed to determine the impact of these lighting devices on sleep measures and patient health outcomes like delirium. With the shift to patient-centred financial incentives and emphasis on patient experience, this study points to the feasibility of a physiologically targeted solution for overnight task lighting in healthcare environments.
- patient-centered care
- nurses
- healthcare quality improvement
- human factors
- hospital medicine
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Footnotes
Contributors LA planned the study, wrote the introduction, final editing, submission. TB created IRB protocol, wrote discussion and conclusion. ZM performed data analysis. MLC, ES and SN administered surveys and wrote materials section, maintained records. GH wrote results. YL organised nursing. BW provided illuminance and SPD data. JH worked with TB editing IRB protocol and manuscript editing.
Funding The authors have not declared a specific grant for this research from any funding agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors.
Competing interests Thomas Jefferson University (Jefferson) and Circalux Inc. (Circalux) have a license agreement whereas Jefferson has intellectual property pending and is licensing to Circalux. Some of the authors (TB, LA and GH) hold equity in Circalux, and are inventors of the intellectual property, and as such did not participate in data collection or analysis. These same individuals were enrolled as students at Jefferson during the study duration. There was no financial exchange between any of the authors, Circalux and Jefferson for the purposes of this study. YL and JH are employees of Jefferson.
Patient consent for publication Obtained.
Ethics approval Thomas Jefferson University IRB Control no. 17C.566 JeffTrial no. 11814.
Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.
Data availability statement Data are available on reasonable request, for a period of 24 months after data collection.