Colored Hospital Gowns Could Hinder Diagnoses

(April 30) -- Hospital gowns are in need of a makeover, according to researchers who suggest that the garments in use now could actually pose a health risk.

Unfortunately for patients, the open black flaps aren't what worry the experts, whose commentary is published in the journal Medical Hypotheses. They're more concerned that the standard hospital gown colors -- usually blue, green or a block print pattern -- might prevent doctors from detecting and diagnosing health problems that are characterized by skin discoloration.

"If a doctor sees a patient, and then sees the patient again later, the doctor will have little or no idea whether the patient's skin has changed color," Mark Changizi, a professor in the department of cognitive science at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, said in a statement. "Small shifts in skin color can have tremendous medical implications."

The researchers are particularly concerned about cyanosis, a condition caused by low oxygen levels in the bloodstream that's indicated by a blueish skin tone.

Thousands of health problems can cause changes to skin color, according to the researchers. Pale or yellowing skin are two common alterations.

Changizi and his team want to see the creation of hospital gowns that more closely match the skin tone of the wearer. And they'd like to see similar changes to bed sheets, as well as the creation of "adhesive tabs" that could be applied directly to a patient's skin, and would give doctors a metric for assessing skin color changes.

The human eye is trained to detect so-called "emotive" color changes, like blushing. But when the entire skin surface area changes tone, it's likely to go unnoticed, because there's no baseline against which to detect the difference.

"If a patient's skin color shifts a small amount, the change will often be imperceptible to doctors and nurses," Changizi said. "If that patient is wearing a skin-colored gown or adhesive tab, however, and their skin uniformly changes slightly more blue, the initially 'invisible' gown or tab will appear bright and yellow to the observer."