Northeast Ohio hospitals and healthcare facilities have one big, important job for most people who walk through their doors: healing.
While stethoscopes and thermometers help them do that, plants do, too. Hospital landscaping is so much more than just greenery, trees, and flowers. It can boost patients’ positive attitudes, reduce their stress or nervousness, lower their blood pressure, ease any tension, and all this brings better healing as a result.
In fact, patients who can see trees from their hospital windows have shorter stays and need less pain medication than patients who don’t have green views.
As a healthcare facilities manager, though, landscaping is one of many things on your plate. We understand. That’s why we came up with this list of the most important landscaping services for hospitals so you have a guide to help you get your job done, and aid in the healing of every person who steps through your hospital doors.
Hospital Landscape Maintenance Essentials
Not many people who go to a hospital aren’t in a heightened state of anxiety. After all, a healthcare facility can be a scary place for patients and visitors.
That’s where great hospital landscaping can actually be an important part of easing jitters and relieving fears.
For staff, it can make them feel protected and focused at their high-stress work.
Want to make sure your healthcare facility has what it takes to create this welcoming, safe, and healing environment? Here are the most important landscape services it needs to succeed.
Start With a Warm Welcome
As your patient or visitor is entering your hospital or healthcare facility, they have already taken notice.
Your entryway should include clear, easy-to-read signs so they know exactly where to go. Hospital landscaping with welcoming plants and flowers can drive a focus to this signage in a positive way, as long as they don’t block words or important directional aids. This includes signage at parking areas and walkways. 
Since hospitals require safe passage at all hours, signage should be well-lit and plant material around signage and lighting should be properly pruned to ensure maximum readability and navigation.
Regular Debris Removal
Many times, hospital properties require a day porter as part of their commercial landscape crew to ensure the completion of daily cleanup activities.
Because healthcare facilities have so many people on their grounds everyday -- from staff to patients to visitors -- they collect a lot of debris. Some of it is natural debris like twigs and sticks, and other debris includes trash and litter.
While common cleanup may seem like a simple task, keeping on top of it during hospital landscape maintenance on a daily basis ensures safety by eliminating any trip-and-fall hazards. Paths must be clear so they can accomodate wheelchairs and crutches and other medical devices.
A Neat Appearance
Neatly mowed and well-tended lawns, tidy and weed-free flower beds, and trimmed trees and shrubs all give a neat, orderly, well kept appearance.
This in and of itself is soothing to patients entering hospital grounds. It gives them a feeling of calm, as well as confidence and trust in their healthcare facility and its staff and professionals.
Overgrown shrubs can also make people feel unsafe, particularly at night when these wild branches can create dark shadows. Shrubs and trees should never be planted so close to walkways that they spill over and limit safe movement through these spaces for all types of patients and their needs. Focusing on detail-oriented hospital landscape maintenance creates these safe, appealing spaces for all who enter and exit your property.
Snow and Ice Management
Slippery surfaces are not welcome in many places, but they are a huge negative at a healthcare facility where safe travel for patients and emergency vehicles for quick and focused care is the highest priority.
Patients, visitors, and staff need to know they’re safe, even when Mother Nature doesn’t cooperate.
Invest in reliable snow and ice removal as part of Northeast Ohio hospital landscape maintenance to keep your property clear at all times.
Seasonal Color and Enhancements
In addition to meticulous maintenance, you want hospital landscaping that includes a smart approach to color and plants that entice the senses to soothe and calm visitors, patients, and staff.
Native plants that draw birds and butterflies are a great addition because they bring instant cheer.
Ensure gardens can be seen from inside to give staff members a sneak peek of nature between hectic tasks and maximize healing for patients.
Consider a water feature as part of your landscape design to add the soothing sound of trickling water to your landscape and melt any fears and worries.
Hire a Vigilant Hospital Landscape Maintenance Professional
There are daily fires to put out on a healthcare site, and facility managers have an overflowing plate of work to do to ensure this gets done.
In fact, hospital landscaping may be last on your list of worries when it comes to all of the safety hazards you have to deal with. But it’s so important to your property’s security.
We understand how busy you are. That’s why Turfscape professionals focus on taking these concerns on, making your medical campus welcoming and peaceful, as well as ensuring clear sight lines and signage.
Turfscape would be happy to discuss some of these hospital landscape maintenance ideas with you. Request a proposal today for your Northeast Ohio property. We’ll review your options and budget together so you can make the best choice.
