Comfort is one of the foundational pillars of patient satisfaction, and patient room whiteboards have become a helpful tool for care teams to provide the increasingly high level of comfort sought by patients in an age where healthcare is more competitive than ever. When patients are kept comfortable, both physically and emotionally, they are far more likely to perceive their care as satisfactory, highly rate the hospital in which they are staying, and recommend the facility to their family and friends. These opinions are also integral parts of HCAPHPS surveys, one of the primary metrics by which a hospital’s performance is rated. 

Over the years, hospitals have made large strides to increase patient comfort in an effort to enhance patient-centered care frameworks — patient rooms now resemble modern hotel rooms, patients are not only treated as those seeking medical care, they are also treated as paying customers whose opinions matter, and hospitals are doing everything they can to differentiate themselves from the competition. Much of this traces back to how comfortable a facility and its caregivers can make patients during their stay. 

Defining a Moving Target 

What is comfort? Surely there is a universal definition that describes the feeling, but it by and large remains a subjective term. It’s more than a soft bed and a couple of pillows. One patient’s comfort is another’s annoyance, and researchers who have studied patient comfort have found it to be a multidimensional concept that lacks a static definition. Hundreds of studies have been conducted over the years, and qualitative analysis of those studies has revealed several key components of patient comfort. These components are a mixture of physical feelings and emotions that vary based on the type of patient, but a comprehensive list includes: 

One of the takeaways from the qualitative analysis of these studies is the amount of emphasis placed on emotional comfort, as opposed to physical comfort. While it’s important for patients to feel little pain, much of the discomfort that comes from hospital stays is rooted in emotional stress, uncertainty, and anxiety, all of which are treated not with medications, medical devices, and comfortable furniture, but rather by healthy and consistent communication delivered by caregivers. 

It’s easy to see now how patient room whiteboards can play such an integral role in making patients comfortable. When taking these components of comfort into consideration, healthcare whiteboards can help patients: