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Indoor Light Emitting Diode (LED) lighting solutions with intelligent control are widely recognized as energy efficient solutions to indoor lighting. However, there has been an increasing concern on LED lighting’s impact on health and wellbeing of users, especially the vulnerable sub-populations such as patients in the healthcare sector. While available solutions tend to suggest spectrum tuning would be able to mitigate the concern, the energy efficiency penalty associated with such strategies is not understood clearly. Thus, this study aims to study the energy-efficient LED lighting solution that achieves optimum balance between the energy efficiency and the health and well-being of patients and medical staff in the healthcare facilities in the tropics.

The project scope includes:
1) Explore the impacts of LED lighting on three psychophysiological dynamics on nursing staffs and patients in a real hospital; i.e., i) biological response, e.g.,single question Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI)will be performed daily for nurses and patients. This involvedasking them to rate on a likert scale “How was your sleep quality last night?”; ii) functional capabilities, e.g., alertness and reaction time. This is measured for nurses using the Sleep-2-peak app (pre and post shift) The Sleep-2-peak app contains scientifically validated tasks ( eg test of reaction time) to measure fatigue and alertness; and iii) subjective emotional perceptions, e.g., nurses and patients’ satisfaction. This is also gathered by requiring nurses and patients to rate their satisfaction with the lighting on a likert scale;
2) Study patients and medical staff’s preferences in LED lighting characteristics, i.e. brightness, colour rendering index and correlated color temperature;
3) Measure the lighting energy performance using multiple sets of parameters (i.e. energy-efficiency driven; sleeping quality-driven; alertness-driven, etc);
4) Experiment different design and controls of LED lighting at various hospital facilities, e.g. ward rooms, toilets, nursing staff stations and office;
5) Conduct questionnaire survey and measurement to verify the findings;
6) Compare and analyze various designs and parameter settings for LED lighting and recommend optimum solutions.

1) Survey study reports on the impacts of lighting parameters on patients’ sleep quality as affecting their well-being, and nursing staff’ working performance (improved alertness at work) and well-being (improved sleep quality at night);

2) Recommendation of design parameters and exemplary tender specifications for LED lighting systems in healthcare facilities to: i) improve patient sleep quality and visual satisfaction and wellbeing; ii) improve nursing staff’ working performance and well-being; iii) save energy consumption; iv) inform relevant Green Mark criteria

3) Demonstration of energy-efficient LED lighting applications for health and well-being in healthcare facility testbeds, with a targeted lighting energy saving of 50% comparing to current fluorescent T8 lighting.

4) Measurement & evaluation methods and reports for the LED lighting implementation.