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Although the arts have been an integral part of healing since ancient times, we are still often asked the question, “What purpose do the arts serve in a healthcare setting?” We know that art is used to enhance the environment—and what environment is in more need of enhancement than the hospital setting?

Generally grim, gray and gloomy, these institutions haven’t been known to promote a feeling of wellbeing upon entering. But here in Florida and across the globe, that has been steadily changing.

With the innovations of the many arts in healthcare programs throughout our state, hospitals and environments of care are becoming far more patient-friendly places that integrate visual art on the walls, live music in common areas, and bedside creative arts engagements with trained arts in health professionals.

Today, we know that art and music-making, as well as dance and all kinds of play, can induce therapeutic effects through intricate links within our nervous, hormonal, and immune systems. Doctors are beginning to see themselves as both scientists and artists in equal part, and to concede that we cannot root out every disease through molecular biology and gene mapping alone.

This new paradigm is not necessarily a paradox. The art of creating and the art of medicine come from a common source of creativity, awareness, and humanity.

All over the globe, healthcare facilities of every kind are being transformed by the healing power of art. No longer confined to the orchestra pit and the gallery wall, the recording studio and the cinema screen; no longer a source of income for a few, or something most of us reserve for our weekend entertainment–art of all kinds is infiltrating the environments of care.

Today, it is hard to find a single hospital or clinic without at least some form of art on its walls.

Doctors, nurses, and health administrators alike are openly acknowledging the healing power of art, and its profound contribution to the quality of our lives.

What’s next for the field of arts in health?

Since the early 2000s, the evidence of the benefits of engaging in the arts has skyrocketed. Arts in health professionals and medical providers are teaming up to make prescribing arts-based engagements a reality for patients and caretakers.

Known as “arts prescribing”, the movement encourages providers to use the arts as a tool to address health issues that cannot be treated with medicine alone.

Learn more about arts prescribing.

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