Aroma is the ‘New Black’

“Two miles from the Magic Kingdom, in the Disney-designed town of Celebration, Sally Grady is on a mission to make having medical tests as fun as a day at the beach. Looking at a disturbing cancellation rate among patients facing an MRI, Grady, who’s director of imaging services at Florida Hospital’s Seaside Imaging Center here, resolved to address the problem by designing an exam space that would be so cheerful and welcoming that patients would decide to stick around. “We created an entire virtual beach environment in this area,” she says. The unit’s flooring is like a boardwalk; changing rooms look like cabanas; patients change not into backless nighties, but into surfer shorts and tops; barium is served, straight up, in a turquoise glass with an umbrella; the MRI unit is disguised as a sand castle; and a sound machine plays tapes of waves and birds. Several ScentAir machines diffuse the smell of the ocean in one room, and the scent of coconut oil in another. The fragrance of vanilla infuses the MRI room, since the scent reportedly helps people feel less claustrophobic.

“We know this isn’t an amusement park. We’re here for something serious,” says Grady. “But you can almost see a patient start to relax when they start hearing the music and the waves and you hand them a pair of flip-flops. An amazing number say, ‘This doesn’t smell like a hospital.’ ” The results have been dramatic. In 2000, when the facility opened, 6% of patients needed sedation, upping the expense of the procedure. By last year, the sedation rate had dropped to 2%. What’s more, the cancellation rate for the test dropped 50%. And the time spent coaxing people to submit to the exam has also fallen dramatically.

Seaside is now touting its beach-themed facility in its marketing materials and getting queries from other health-care outfits seeking to replicate its success. Grady has already rolled out a similar environment at Florida Hospital’s Kissimmee facility.

For Grady, whose own teenage daughter needed MRI services last year, it’s less about cost savings than about patient care. And if coconut oil and vanilla can help alleviate the stress of a frightening exam, then, she says, bring it on. “If you see how intimidating it is for kids to face this test, you know you’ve got to have this environment,” she says. “Once I get them in the door, I’ve captured them.”

Excerpt from http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/97/brand-spirit.html