Publications
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2015 The Healing Power of Art and Artists
Annette Ridenour is recognized as a leading pioneer in applying the arts to improve health and healthcare. She has stated, “Original art done with a healing intention is transformative. It can shape shift the hospital environment; it changes the energy.” …READ MORE
2015 Managing Arts Programs in Healthcare, by Patricia Dewey Lambert
Annette Ridenour is the President and founder of Aesthetics, Inc., a thirty-five-year-old multidisciplinary healthcare design firm. The arts have always been at the center of her firm’s many services, all devoted to improving the patient experience in healthcare. She has designed and facilitated visual arts, participative, and performing arts programs for hospitals throughout the United States. …READ MORE
2014 Art with a Healing Intention, Art That Supports the Healing Process
Annette Ridenour is the president of Aesthetics Inc., an art consultancy firm specializing in the creation of art programs for hospitals. Her bio from the Aesthetics website describes her as “a pioneer in applying the arts to improve health and healthcare. She served as one of the original board members of the Society for the Arts in Healthcare, and she co-founded the Blair L. Sadler International Healing Arts Competition, which recognized exemplary arts projects that have measurably improved the quality of healthcare. …READ MORE
2013 A Colorful Sight to “Sea”, Health Facilities Management Magazine
The waiting room outside the surgery area at Rady Children’s Hospital Acute Care Pavilion in San Diego is awash with playful, bright images and colors of the sea. Everything from the artwork on the walls, flooring and even the furniture and upholstery reflect the pavilion’s “Sea to Space” design theme throughout all four floors. The highly integrated design by Aesthetics Inc. features wayfinding themes that are reflected in the art, and the art complements interior textures and colors. The result is a calm and peaceful healing journey with a wealth of fun and uplifting details. …READ MORE
When you go into San Diego Children’s Hospital, you see huge dancing sculptures, movable art at a child’s height, and beautiful rooms with healing gardens. This is the work of Annette Ridenour, an arts and healthcare pioneer who has worked for more than thirty-five years developing arts programs for healthcare institutions around the United States Her work in the design of harmonic environments and sacred space heals people deeply and spiritually while they are in her healing hospital environments, and her work training artists in a variety of healthcare settings expands the practice of healing art at the bedside. …READ MORE
2013 Photo Tour: Storyland Garden, Children’s – St. Paul, Healthcare Design Magazine
Children’s Hospitals and Clinics of Minnesota recently opened its new 6,000-square-foot healing garden at its St. Paul campus. Designed by Aesthetics Inc. (San Diego), the Children’s Hospital Association (CHA) Storyland Garden provides a space of respite, activity, and socialization for patients, families, and visitors. …READ MORE
2012 Member Spotlight, The Beryl Institute
Annette is Aesthetics’ CEO and Creative Visionary Officer, whose role is to understand the pulse and direction of health care and to guide her design firm to assist health care organizations by designing physical environments that create positive patient experiences, and support organizational cultural change and improvement initiatives. …READ MORE
2011 The Culture of Possibility, Healthcare Design Magazine
My firm, Aesthetics Inc., has been involved with various aspects of the design of children’s hospitals for more than 20 years. When we recently were privileged to work with Children’s Hospitals and Clinics of Minnesota on a major expansion project, we had the opportunity to participate with—and learn from—visionary leaders during a project I believe has much to teach us all. Originally hired to implement the hospital’s expansive arts program, my firm and I were also asked to assist the organization in a design leadership capacity. …READ MORE
2010 The Inspirational Power of Art, Healthcare Design Magazine
One of the most memorable design projects that I worked on in college was a restaurant based on the Aesclepian hospitals of ancient Greece. Well before I had decided to focus my career on healthcare, I was fascinated by the idea that the ancient Greeks saw a curative component to being exposed to all forms of the arts. They believed that exposure over the course of many days to extreme emotion, both laughter to tears, while surrounded by nature and beauty acted as a cathartic to the body. That idea resonated and has stayed with me over all those years. …READ MORE
With over 30 compelling human stories, research-based evidence, and pragmatic advice grounded in many years of experience, the authors take you inside the process of transforming the healthcare experience through the arts. They provide practical action steps for any healthcare organization and artists, as well as helpful questions consumers should ask when choosing where to receive their care. “This deeply important and inspiring book will broaden your horizons and lift your spirits.” Donald Berwick, President, Institute for Healthcare Improvement “A compelling journey into the healing power of art. A beautiful book physically and in the inspiring story it tells.” Leonard L. Berry, Ph.D., Distinguished Professor of Marketing, Mays Business School, Texas A&M University “Ridenour and Sadler’s book is an indispensable compendium of wonderful ideas and resources to assist healthcare organizations in successfully planning and implementing transformative arts programs. It is a must-have!” Susan B. Frampton, Ph.D., President, Planetree …
2009 Take an Artistic Approach to Design, Healthcare Design Magazine
Last fall, AtlantiCare, where I am senior vice president and chief operating officer, opened a new seven-story patient tower — the George F. Lynn Harmony Pavilion — at our hospital campus in Atlantic City, N.J. More than 900 pieces of art, including five large commissions, with a total budget of $500,000, distinguish the project. …READ MORE
2008 The Leading by Design Research Project, The Caritas Project
Annette Ridenour has invested nearly 30 years in creating nationally recognized and award-winning healing environments, arts programs, wayfinding programs, interior design, and donor recognition systems for facilities. These facilities include some of the largest and best-known healthcare and educational organizations in the United States and Canada. …READ MORE
2008 Top Healthcare Sign Companies, Healthcare Design Magazine
Healthcare Building Ideas’ 2008 Top Healthcare Sign Company Report features firms with varying levels of experience in the healthcare market, including this year’s ranking of the top five sign companies by healthcare clients and healthcare billings, based on data provided by the responding companies. …
2008 Interview with Annette Ridenour, Henry Domke
Annette Ridenour is one of the top leaders in the use of art in HealthCare. She is also one of the founders and leaders of the Society for Arts in Healthcare (SAH). She was on the board of SAH since the beginning and served as its president for two terms. I wanted to get her impression of their annual conference this year. …READ MORE
2007 Improving Healing Through Art and Music, Healthcare Design Magazine
The capacity of the arts to produce beneficial health outcomes has been appreciated intuitively for some time. Nearly half of all American hospitals utilize some form of arts-based activity to serve patients, visitors, and staff. But it is only relatively recently that the healing and restorative impacts of art and music have been substantiated by careful research.
Loma Linda University Medical Center (LLUMC) has a distinguished hundred-year history of innovation in medical science and patient care. Each year it admits more than 33,000 inpatients and serves roughly half a million outpatients. It operates some of the largest clinical programs in the United States in areas such as neonatal care and outpatient surgery, and is recognized as an international leader in several medical disciplines. …READ MORE
2002 Holy Family Chapel, Scripps Mercy Hospital San Diego, Healthcare Design Magazine
Aesthetics provided interior design and art consulting services for this chapel, which opened in September 2001. Moon Mayoras Architects, Inc., was the Executive Architect. The design process began with integration of Diocesan directives for Catholic chapels and goals established at a Vision of Design workshop with chaplains, Sisters of Mercy and staff. Aesthetics translated these criteria into conceptual designs that became the heart and vision of the client’s five-year fundraising challenge. …READ MORE
2001 Scripps McDonald Center, La Jolla, Healthcare Design Magazine
In 1999, the collaborative design team of Aesthetics and the Schmidt Design Group of San Diego was the creative force behind the transformation of an underused and uninspiring outdoor concrete court into a tranquil and contemplative healing environment for Scripps Memorial Hospital’s drug and alcohol treatment center. The client had meager funding to start, and the design team had to develop a creative concept that would inspire the necessary fundraising of $150,000 for project completion. …READ MORE
This unique 59-bed replacement hospital will provide a new 115,000-sq.-ft., distinct-part skilled nursing facility for the long-term care of permanently disabled children-the only such facility in the state of California. Deinstitutionalizing the hospital to create a residentially scaled environment and balancing privacy with opportunities for varying degrees of communal interaction are essential goals of the design. …READ MORE
Major health care institutions across the country have recognized the power of the arts, in all their modalities, to provide messages promoting healing and a sense of community. As this new and significant trend in arts programming evolves, those of us working as health care arts consultants are fielding an increasing number of questions pertaining to the power of the arts to improve the quality of patient care. …READ MORE