Colour Solutions in Navigation Support as an Indicator of Visualisation Effi ciency in a Modern Hospital (A Review)

Abstract

Background. Provided stronger demands of people towards healthcare systems, changes in the legal framework and increasing competition, medical institutions are seeking new approaches and mechanisms for improving comfort of medical care services. Navigation support as part of the visualisation system in a medical unit should comply with certain standards of colour design and its comfortable presentation to patients.Objectives. To formulate basic principles for effective colour navigation support in medical facilities using best national and foreign practices of colour design for navigation and visualisation solutions in healthcare.Мethods. Relevant publications were mined in Scopus, Web of Science, MedLine, the Cochrane Library, Elibrary and PubMed. Search depth by time was limited to 10 years. Main keyword queries were «lean production» [«бережливое производство»], «lean healthcare» [«бережливое здравоохранение»], «lean medicine», «navigation» [«навигация»], «visualization» [«визуализация»], «бережливая поликлиника», «квалиметрия». The obtained data were interpreted using legal, historical, descriptive analytical methods, content analysis.Results. Colour solutions in the Russian healthcare system are implemented in a variety of ways to support data visualisation. As part of a visual and tactile navigation system, the colour solutions serve to highlight individual navigation objects, pattern space, order and structure navigation elements, emphasise and manage relevant textual information. Incorrect colour navigation support can lead to wastes of lean principles in the main, auxiliary and maintenance processes in a medical facility. The Russian federal legislation does not currently regulate colour solutions for visualisation support in medical institutions.Conclusion. Colour solutions being part of navigation support systems should be regulated by federal and regional legal acts to allow qualimetric assessment and improvement of navigation and visual systems in medical facilities. A high-quality design of navigation support requires detailed information about the managed institution.