Optimizing the Patient Experience: Music and Nature at the Bedside

Susan Mazer, President/CEO, Healing HealthCare Systems, Inc.

While providing a healing environment is a tenet of patient care, there are compelling reasons for accounting for what patients see and hear while confined during hospitalization. This presentation provides the theory, research, outcomes and actionable steps to adding music and nature as a means of not only improving the patient experience but, equally important, reducing stress, minimizing delirium, minimizing the negative impact of unavoidable noise, improving restfulness and sleep and improving both staff and patient satisfaction. Participants will be able to identify benefits of distraction therapy, understand characteristics of natural and unnatural environments and utilize the benefits of music as a means of reducing noise perception.