Seinäjoki Central Hospital

Seinäjoki, Finland

Making a clinic less clinical

Health and Wellbeing at Seinäjoki Central Hospital
When extensive renovation work was undertaken at Seinäjoki Central Hospital (Finland), the focus for the refresh was to promote health and wellbeing. Helvar played a key role in achieving a functional yet calming environment to help patients feel relaxed and comfortable. The lighting design is made with people in mind, to make their work easier and time in the hospital more pleasant. Helvar was able to offer innovative solutions for lighting controls, by focusing on lighting intelligence, human centric lighting and energy efficiency to create what will be the largest installation of its kind in Finland.
This large-scale renovation project started in 2007 and was carried out in stages to reduce disruption to patients. The work commenced in the children’s department and since then 20 departments have been completed, the total renovation will extend until 2025.
The Challenge
Teemu Pirttinen, the Hospital’s technical department representative says: “Carefully planned lighting is vital in the healthcare sector and we chose Helvar to design lighting that would meet the daily work demands throughout the building. The main challenge was to ensure that all applied technology would serve the people, creating a comfortable environment for recovering patients while serving the independent needs of personnel across the hospital.”
New installations of lighting controls in the hospital have created an elegant design that is functional while creating a cosy environment for patients. “Thanks to dynamic lighting, the colour and brightness can be adjusted to suit the time of day. The night and day variations support the care work carried out by the staff and the recovery of the patients,” says Teemu.
Key Achievements
Helvar installed around 200 lighting routers and this amount will only increase further as the renovations continue, making it the largest healthcare project in Finland. All the routers are linked in the hospitals own IP network, which means that the system is easy to maintain, any changes and adjustments don’t require site visits. Both offices and corridors have constant light control, motion detector and automatic dimming. The automation of the lighting ensures energy efficiency and an overall reduction of cost for lighting.
Key Solutions
To make the premises genuinely functional and as pleasant as possible, no time nor effort was saved in the design and planning. A welcoming environment and nice appearance have been accomplished with lighting and colour. The lighting design for both the intensive care and recovery room were innovatively thought through. The recovery room was designed for individual care as well, both considering lighting and care work. Each patient has privacy and peace combined with good care and monitoring.
Lighting serves the particular needs of different departments of the hospital, such as reflective surfaces and dim spaces, the lighting can be easily adjusted to serve them. The new lighting is practical as it adjusts itself to the changes of natural light and is always optimal for working. To guarantee that the new lighting design will improve working circumstances the personnel have been well guided and trained to use the new system.

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Seinäjoki, Finland