What About Our Quality of Life Within the Systems?

Our quality of life matters as we spend time in doctor's offices, Emergency Rooms, clinics and hospitals.

On Thursday, I facilitated a conversation with two family caregivers: Barbara Corley, who cares for her sister and her husband, and Jaclyn Greenberg, who cares for her son. You can watch our discussion, below.

Our conversation focused on the family caregiver’s stuffed calendar and expanded into a discussion about our experiences within the system environments. Jaclyn shared that certain environments trigger her PTSD, which made me think about the health care system environments.

The environments — the offices, the Emergency Rooms, the hospitals — are typically sterile and uninviting. Yet, we spend a lot of time sitting in these spaces. I wrote last year about the experience in the Emergency Room and how that space really can contribute to our distress.

Thursday’s conversion really connected some dots for me. So much of the focus of quality of life is about the spaces where we live. For family caregivers, though, we spend a lot of time in other spaces and those spaces may not be comfortable for us and our carees. Our quality of life matters in these spaces, too.

I’d love to know:

How would you design and decorate a doctor’s office to create a comfort, efficient environment for staff, family caregivers and carees?

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Resources

• We held a special event yesterday called Impact Caregiving. During 6, 25-minute workshops, I offered insights to help small business owners who serve family caregivers. Join our Impact Caregiving space to be notified when I post the archive and to take advantage of special offers on our training programs.

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