At the Fuorisalone in Milan, Fujifilm confirms its vocation as a company that is attentive to the patient, with “Breath”, a project that paves the way for a new approach to healthcare architecture based on the concept of “humanization”. This helps to meet functional and design requirements, while creating environments that reduce the stress of staff members, and improving conditions for patients and their courses of treatment.
Speakers at the presentation included Davide Campari, General Manager, Medical Systems division, Fujifilm Italia; Filippo Taidelli, architect - FTA architecture studio; Doctor Pierdante Piccioni, Public Health Manager of the Lodi Local Health Authority, now known as “Dr. Empathy”; Elena Bottinelli, engineer and Head of Innovation and Digitization of the San Donato Group; Giuliana Ferraino, journalist from the newspaper Corriere della Sera.
Two years of the pandemic and the strong drive towards digitization have accelerated the metamorphosis process of the modern hospital, with the central role of patients, and their health and emotional needs inside hospitals firmly brought into the limelight. It is becoming more and more necessary for public and private hospitals alike to reduce the stressful environment and situations that patients and healthcare operators experience by raising the perceived quality of their surroundings.
This is particularly important in diagnostic and radiology departments, where structural limitations mean rooms have no natural light and are full of complex machines that make the layout even less flexible and the lack of contact with the outside world has a heightened impact on the patient’s emotional state, making them feel vulnerable, depressed and anxious.
The pandemic and its shattering effects on the healthcare system have accelerated the metamorphosis towards the hospital of the future, and towards a more empathetic model of treatment and care.
Fujifilm Italia’s observation of this phenomenon triggered its own reflection, and it partnered with Filippo Taidelli, an architect who has always worked on healthcare projects and heads a design thinktank involving designers and artists with specific skills in the humanization of space, to come up with the concept of “Breath”.
The healthcare environment becomes the synthesis that binds technological innovation and nature together. The Fuorisalone installation located in the University of Milan courtyard refers to a concept that is as imperceptible as it is essential - blending the exterior and the interior, bringing life inside ourselves and the natural environment in the treatment rooms. Reawakening sensory memory to foster the patient’s inner wellbeing.
Stimuli from the natural environment are brought into the interiors of the healthcare facilities, generating a dynamic, active and personal relationship with their users.
A mixture of reality and fiction that can take the patient by the hand and transport them into a “new dimension”, an abstract landscape. A plant-filled patio turns the waiting room into an oasis; the corridor - a loggia looking out over the horizon - and the X-ray room turns into a light box as you gaze at the sky through a wide skylight. A suggestive combination that breaks down the physical boundaries and encourages us to turn our gaze inwards.
Fujifilm’s long-standing focus on the patient has materialized over the years through projects aimed at humanizing equipment and spaces, from the “Harmony” mammography systems designed to transform hospitals and Breast Units into welcoming places where women can feel safe and relaxed while waiting for - and during - their mammography screening, to the “Piccola Lucy” project that reaches out to young patients by customizing the paediatric wards of hospitals.
Davide Campari, General Manager, Medical Systems division, Fujifilm Italy
“We are currently experiencing momentous change. The approach to designing healthcare environments can no longer be based only on treating the illness, it must be driven by an interest in improving the conditions of patients and staff through the design of the care and treatment areas. This is because the features of the environments in healthcare facilities can have a positive effect on both patients and staff, and are also reflected in the effectiveness and quality of care, and this is the direction that Fujifilm has been taking in recent years.”
Filippo Taidelli, architect
“I’d like to thank Fujifilm for giving me the opportunity to continue to explore the research I have been pursuing for years into the therapeutic value of care and treatment areas, to define together the new trends of the hospital of the future in the wake of the revolution generated by the Covid pandemic. Fujifilm's confidence and experience have made it possible for me to head up a new design thinktank involving companies, designers and artists with specific skills in the humanization and digitization of spaces. Aiming to produce a concrete, uncomplicated project where we can bring the outdoors into the treatment areas and the natural environment and life inside ourselves, by reawakening our sensory memory.”
For information:
Luana Porfido, European Head of Corporate Communication and Integration Chief, FUJIFILM Europe GmbH luana.porfido@fujifilm.com
Stella Casazza – 3493579552 stella.casazza@cmailander.it
Gaia Palma – 3346060961 gaia.palma@cmailander.it