Philips: Philips Ambient Experience solution at Children’s Medical Center Dallas helps calm young patients with behavioral health issues, winning multiple design awards

Royal Philips (NYSE: PHG, AEX: PHIA), a global leader in health technology, today announced that it has received a coveted gold-level ‘Touchstone Award’ from the Center for Health Design* for the Ambient Experience behavioral health rooms it co-developed with Children’s Medical Center Dallas (Dallas, TX, U.S.) and social solutions software company Recornect (Eindhoven, the Netherlands). This unique behavioral health experience solution, which humanizes mental health care delivery in the hospital’s emergency department (ED), combines a resilient touchscreen interface, lighting, sound, video projection and therapeutic content to de-escalate patient behaviors that impact patient and staff safety. By allowing staff to connect with patients in new and interactive ways, it also helps deliver therapy more quickly.

“Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, we have seen an increase in the amount of young people feeling extremely sad about their lives. Instead of sitting in an emergency room for days with nothing to do, which can worsen their condition, Philips’ solution now gives them the chance to really make it their own space. In addition, our staff are now even more comfortable interacting with patients, regardless of the patient’s age or condition,” said Geneva Burnap, Senior Director, Emergency Services at Children’s Health.

Using our human-centered design approach we are able to help improve the patient and staff experience, calm behavioral health patients so they can be treated better and more quickly, ultimately improving outcomes and reducing the cost of care.
Sean Carney

Chief Design Officer at Philips


“Coming from the Center for Health Design, an organization founded on the vision of creating healthcare facilities that promote healthier environments for patients and staff, today’s Touchstone Award has a very special meaning for Philips,” said Sean Carney, Chief Design Officer at Philips. “Using our human-centered design approach we are able to help improve the patient and staff experience, calm behavioral health patients so they can be treated better and more quickly, ultimately improving outcomes and reducing the cost of care.”

Today’s Touchstone award follows a range of other awards received by Philips for its behavioral health room solution. These include an ‘IDEA 2022 Gold Award -Medical & Health’ from the Industrial Designers Society of America, an ‘Innovation by Design Award 2022’ from Fast Company, and a winner ‘Health & Wellness Award’ from Core77. In March 2022, the solution also received an honorable mention in Fast Company’s ‘World Changing Ideas 2022’ list.

In addition to Children’s Medical Center Dallas, Ambient Experience behavioral health rooms have also recently been installed in the emergency department of Oklahoma Children’s Hospital OU Health (Oklahoma City, OK, U.S.).