For the first time, health economists have placed a dollar estimate on the impact hospital green spaces can have on mitigating nurse and physician-associated burnout-related costs. And it’s eye-opening.
While nature’s efficacy in reducing stress and burnout is well documented, as is research on the impact and costs stemming from burnout of nurses and physicians, until now, no one has developed and publicly shared a means to calculate how valuable nature could be to hospitals when used as a biophilic intervention for staff.
By way of a new calculation described in this white paper, we now have a means to calculate the potential financial impact of green spaces on a hospital’s bottom line.
To arrive at this new calculation, we zeroed in on two domains of existing, published research data:
-one, studies that quantify burnout’s impact on turnover, absenteeism and medical liability; and
-two, research that quantifies how a biophilic intervention, in the form of a hospital garden, can reduce levels of stress and burnout.
Who should read this report? Hospital leaders and administrators, health care consultants, physicians and nurses working to advance efforts aimed at fostering better hospital working environments and landscape architects designing for health care settings.
Why read it? To discovery how to quantify the financial impact of a hospital green space when employed as a means to mitigate nurse and physician burnout.
Funding Support
This project has been funded wholly or in part by the United States Environmental Protection Agency under assistance agreement CB96358501 to Maryland Department of Natural Resources. The contents of this document do not necessarily reflect the views and policies of the Environmental Protection Agency, nor does the EPA endorse trade names or recommend the use of commercial products mentioned in this document.
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