Incentivizing the daylit hospital: the green guide for health care approach.

Daylight is usually mentioned immediately after reduced energy use in conversations about sustainable building design, yet in North America, daylight remains the most-asked-for/least-delivered aspect of the caregiver work environment. In Europe, essentially the same care practices continue to be accommodated in daylit building configurations. Recognizing that the daylighting credits in Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) for new construction (NC) are more difficult for large healthcare projects to achieve during the design process, and that two daylighting credits are probably not enough of an incentive to change North American healthcare design practice, the Green Guide for Health Care (GGHC) has both simplified the process of calculating daylight achievement levels and increased the number of daylighting credits available from two to five.