Dive Brief:

• Cook Children's Medical Center has turned a construction necessity into an opportunity for patients and staff alike, making a fence into an art project.
• Where the hospital is expanding, hospital staff put up plywood along the fence, and the institution's creative arts department sketched scenes on it.
• Now, both young patients and adult staff can go out and paint, coloring in the sketches as they feel the inspiration move them, and giving the kids a chance to get out of the building and possibly forget for a little while why they are there.

Dive Insight:

The project seems to be accomplishing its goal. One 4-year-old's mom says her daughter, in the hospital since a December car crash, acts as if nothing happened to her when she is outside painting. A surgeon said that coloring inside the lines on the fence may be harder than operating, but the time away from the daily routine is relaxing. The hospital may auction off the artistic fence once construction is done.