Health care spaces and structures influence how efficiently and effectively health interventions work and for whom. Roles of clinical, common, and restricted areas in health care operations should be collectively and inclusively crafted to balance employees’, patients’, and visitors’ needs for safety, comfort, collegiality, and good outcomes. Evidence-based design has evolved to guide architecture, engineering, building construction, and service delivery in health care. What is seen, heard, smelled, tasted, and felt when we inhabit health care spaces is neither clinically, ethically, nor aesthetically neutral because peace, calm, and rest facilitate healing. This theme issue considers evidence-based design ideas in health care that motivate good care.

Background image by Sara Gironi Carnevale.