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Interior of McMullen Art Gallery at the University of Alberta Hospitals

Table of Contents

Introduction

Growing Support for the Arts in Healthcare

Artists on the Wards

Conclusion

All Resources

For many reasons, organizational support for arts in healthcare is growing.

The United States-based Society for the Arts in Healthcare (SAH) has accomplished considerable advocacy work in the private sector and at the federal government level over the past 10 years. Due to the SAH’s efforts, the United States National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) has become involved in promoting the growth of arts in hospitals. Equally important, the SAH has become a federal-level advocate—working with other federal agencies, such as Health and Human Services, to promote the growth of the arts in hospitals. The NEA helps provide funds for healthcare centres to bring in arts in healthcare consultants to advise in the development of a variety of programs and arts-based approaches.

In July 2003, the NEA led a conference of 40 experts in medicine, social services, business, media, and government to develop a strategic plan to advance cultural programming in healthcare. As a result, the US Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations facilitated a survey of their member hospitals (90 percent of the US hospitals). Seventy percent of the hospitals surveyed responded. The survey explored all possible types, structures, and funding sources of arts programming in hospitals. It uncovered some surprising results:

73 percent of responding hospitals display artwork

48 percent present performances in public spaces

36 percent have bedside art activities

55 percent have arts activities geared to staff

In Canada, 2005 was a formative year. The first Canadian Forum on Arts and Health was hosted by the British Columbia Arts Council, in partnership with Health Canada and the University of British Columbia.

And, in Alberta, the first International Society for the Arts in Healthcare Conference was hosted by Edmonton’s Capital Health Region, the Friends of University Hospitals, and the SAH. This conference offered over 70 sessions from international speakers in arts in healthcare research, programming, and new initiatives and was attended by 418 delegates from the US, UK, Singapore, Australia, Brazil, India, and Canada.

It is not surprising that Edmonton’s Capital Health Region was a co-host for the first international Society for the Arts in Healthcare conference. At the University of Alberta Hospitals (UAH), five local practising professional artists are employed to work one-on-one at with adult acute-care patients and their caregivers. These part-time staff artists include three visual artists, one musician, and one literary artist. The staff artists train and supervise a team of 30 volunteer artists. Together, they serve 650 patients in cardiology, pulmonary, transplant, neurology, burns, plastics, surgery, dialysis, renal, emergency, orthopedics, hematology, and internal and family medicine nursing units.

Arts in healthcare programming is not new at the University of Alberta Hospitals. For the past 20 years, it has been the home of the Friends of University Hospitals, which raises funds to support the purpose-built McMullen Art Gallery, a growing art collection of over 1200 original artworks by western-Canadian artists, with specialized staff to support various activities. The 1000-sq.-ft. McMullen Art Gallery is located next to a main entrance of the UAH and fronted by floor-to-ceiling windows. It attracts 17 000 visitors per year, and fosters awareness of the arts in a large hospital complex.

It was not until 1999 that the Friends discovered a number of hospitals in the US that were doing much more with art than hanging it on the walls. Art was being created by patients, and medical staff was publishing its benefits. The idea of art at the bedside fit beautifully with the needs of the University Hospital, whose patient-population consisted increasingly of those in need of acute care.

The length of acute-care patients’ stays can vary from three days (for surgery) to nine months or more (waiting for a transplant). Patients often describe their hospitalization as a loss of identity, and varying degrees of control over their lives. Patients can be in a tremendous amount of pain, uncomfortable, anxious, distressed, lonely, and depressed. Add boredom to this mixture, and it works to elevate these feelings and emotions—which further complicates their physical ailments.

Difficult as research into the arts in healthcare can be, it has begun. Today, a number of reports and studies exist. The Society for the Arts in Healthcare has published some excellent reports, both surveying and summarizing research documents. It also shares a lengthy bibliography to satisfy all appetites for research.

From existing data, we know that the arts at the bedside can foster feelings of calm, peace, and joy and even inspire humour. It can provide the patient with independence in making choices—even if only to refuse an artist’s visit.

Creative expression can offer patients an opportunity to escape their current situation, albeit for a moment, and to reminisce about good times.

It can offer an opportunity for patients to express their identity—or discover a new one.

And, perhaps most important to the nursing and medical staff, the arts can alleviate boredom, anxiety, and physical pain.

Artists on the Wards

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