Environment Matters: Our Thoughts on Freakonomics Radio Episode 529. “Can Our Surroundings Make Us Smarter?”


by Megan Fisher, Thursday, January 19, 2023

Patient Experience

In Episode 529 of Freakonomics Radio, entitled “Can Our Surroundings Make Us Smarter?” Stephen Dubner and Angela Duckworth dive into the ways in which our physical environments impact our experiences - our capacity to focus and learn, power to create, and ability to regulate our emotions. They are intentional about their mention of the healthcare space, as an especially challenging built environment.


The difficult reality is that we often have little control over our built environment, which in turn, can make it difficult to manage or optimize our experiences within those spaces. That’s one (of many) reasons why “The Patient Experience” is such a key phrase of leaders of healthcare facilities: perhaps the key to improving experience for patients is to make the built environment of a hospital more manageable.