Chapter 16: The Role of Wayfinding in Healthcare: Making the Environment Healthier

This chapter investigates the experience and well-being of people in a healthcare context before elaborating on wayfinding. As wayfinding is a crucial asset, it can impact a hospital's identity and branding as well as the well-being of the various actors who work, visit and are admitted to hospital.

Whether coming for a doctor's appointment, to visit a loved one, or to start a new job, many people experience stress and frustration in a hospital environment. These feelings often arise from our inability to easily find our way through a hospital campus or the buildings themselves. Such negative emotions impact people's well-being even when they have little or nothing to do with the motives for going to a hospital. Although many hospitals and healthcare facilities invest money and effort in proper wayfinding as a key aspect of their identity, several unmet human challenges remain.