Healthcare Lighting is a service that Siemens Healthcare offers to enhance the patient experience in an imaging suite.
November 20, 2009 – Many patients feel more comfortable and are more relaxed when the examination room or the diagnostic device is flooded with colored light. Based on findings in modern psychological studies, colors and light have been used for some time in doctors’ practices and hospitals to positively influence the condition of patients.
A new bright spot in the imaging suite is the inclusion of lighting design in medical facilities, aimed at creating a friendly and colorful environment instead of the common bland hospital atmosphere. The Healthcare Lighting service Siemens Healthcare provides is designed to support care givers in enhancing the patient experience.
Light installations are typically placed in the CT, AX and MRI suites. Light tubes – operated via computer to emit different light colors – are mounted on walls. Walls and ceilings can be attractively decorated with different motifs, such as a mountain landscape and a blue sky with white clouds. With a special software program, the operator can choose from the full color spectrum at will and combine different tints. A special system for the MRI room works with a large number of small LEDs (light-emitting diodes) mounted on the ceiling that light up the entire room in color.
At the Center for Diagnostic Radiology at Butzbach near Frankfurt, Germany, providers found that distracting patients was especially important in CT scans, according to Dr. Farschad Tabesch, a radiologist at the Butzbach Center for Diagnostic Radiology. Since the Butzbach Center installed the lighting system, only about 1 percent of patients have to be sedated before undergoing an MRI scan. The distraction with colors also works well with children, who in a large number of cases require sedation. Images are said to have fewer motion artifacts.
Siemens will showcase its lighting solution at the 95th Scientific Assembly and Annual Meeting of the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA) from Nov. 29 to Dec. 3 at McCormick Place in Chicago.
For more information: www.siemens.com/healthcare-lighting
*Some modules of the Siemens Healthcare Lighting Solution are presently not available in the U.S.
March 31, 2026 
