JMIR Publications

Background:

Conventional approaches to improve the quality of clinical patient imaging studies focus predominantly on updating or replacing imaging equipment; however, it is often not considered that patients can also highly influence the diagnostic quality of clinical imaging studies. Patient-specific artifacts can limit the diagnostic image quality, especially when patients are uncomfortable, anxious, or agitated. Imaging facility or environmental conditions can also influence the patient’s comfort and willingness to participate in diagnostic imaging studies, especially when performed in visually unesthetic, anxiety-inducing, and technology-intensive imaging centers. When given the opportunity to change a single aspect of the environmental or imaging facility experience, patients feel much more in control of the otherwise unfamiliar and uncomfortable setting. Incorporating commercial, easily adaptable, ambient lighting products within clinical imaging environments allows patients to individually customize their environment for a more personalized and comfortable experience.

Objective:

The aim of this pilot study was to use a customizable colored light-emitting diode (LED) lighting system within a clinical imaging environment and demonstrate the feasibility and initial findings of enabling healthy subjects to customize the ambient lighting and color. Improving the patient experience within clinical imaging environments with patient-preferred ambient lighting and color may improve overall patient comfort, compliance, and participation in the imaging study and indirectly contribute to improving diagnostic image quality.

Methods:

We installed consumer-based internet protocol addressable LED lights using the ZigBee standard in different PET/CT scan rooms within a clinical imaging environment. We recruited healthy volunteers (n=35) to generate pilot data in order to develop a subsequent clinical trial. The visual perception assessment procedure utilized questionnaires with preprogrammed light/color settings and further assessed how subjects preferred ambient light and color within a clinical imaging setting.

Results:

Technical implementation using programmable LED lights was performed without any hardware or electrical modifications to the existing clinical imaging environment. Subject testing revealed substantial variabilities in color perception; however, clear trends in subject color preference were noted. In terms of the color hue of the imaging environment, 43% (15/35) found blue and 31% (11/35) found yellow to be the most relaxing. Conversely, 69% (24/35) found red, 17% (6/35) found yellow, and 11% (4/35) found green to be the least relaxing.

Conclusions:

With the majority of subjects indicating that colored lighting within a clinical imaging environment would contribute to an improved patient experience, we predict that enabling patients to customize environmental factors like lighting and color to individual preferences will improve patient comfort and patient satisfaction. Improved patient comfort in clinical imaging environments may also help to minimize patient-specific imaging artifacts that can otherwise limit diagnostic image quality.

ClinicalTrial:

ClinicalTrials.gov NCT03456895; https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT03456895