The Women’s & Children’s Hospital (WCH) is a public health facility situated in the inner city suburb of North Adelaide, South Australia. It has recently undergone a $50 million renovation that delivered world-class upgrades addressing high-priority clinical and infrastructure requirements to continue delivering the highest level of care and services to patients and their families.

Versalux, Lucid Consulting, BCA, GHD Woodhead, Mossop & Niramar worked in collaboration on the new project; Versalux was briefed by the Women’s & Children’s Hospital to create lighting designs and systems that helps patients avoid the sleep and rest disrupting effects of prolonged exposure to artificial lighting. The lighting solution utilises Versalux’s new MelaGen™ system which delivers lighting benefits based upon the scientific and innovative research of Alertness CRC in collaboration with Monash University. Over the course of each day the light sources alter their colour spectrum and intensity in measured amounts to a stimulate diurnal response in the body and ensure that the occupants maintain a circadian rhythm.

Versalux is providing a new range of luminaires to the WCH with the launch of its first generation of MelaGen™ enabled products and marks a major milestone by bringing this new technology to one of the most advanced clinics in Adelaide. The clinic sets new criteria for intelligent hospital planning to a connective layout through the entire building for patients and the medical profession of hospital personal focused on the latest medical technology and utilising the modern facility at their fingertips for staff and patient satisfaction.

MelaGen™ luminaires are offered in three configurations – MelaGen™ Blue, MelaGen™ ReFresh, and MelaGen™ ReGen. The Women & Children’s Hospital utilises ReGen in the patient and emergency rooms, which combines blue enriched and blue depleted illumination sources in each luminaire which are then controlled by a DALI device Type 8 (DT8) driver. The control system allows scheduling of transitions at sunrise and sunset to “deliver the science” of bringing the body towards and out of a rest-ready state response as it has a calming effect on people. Assisting in reducing stress for patients and families to care and nurture the patients in a peaceful environment.

The ASTI MelaGen™ ReGen is a special high-performance luminaire based upon the trusted ASTI MelaGen™ series of LED panels, arranged specifically to suit the layout of the new, state of the art healthcare facility. The ASTI MelaGen™ is just one of many new MelaGen™ enabled products launched by Versalux. The ASTI MelaGen™ ReGen luminaires are designed to be able to emulate the daily blue enriched and blue depleted illumination provided by daylight, enabling patients to transition to a relaxed and desirable state before sleeping and to an alert state during waking hours, all with large, uniform panels designed to reduce presence of glare.

The COMO MelaGen™ luminaires provide elegance and performance into a technologically advanced fixture in the administrative reception area and throughout the corridors of the Women’s & Children’s Hospital. The COMO MelaGen™ blends in harmoniously with the minimalist palette of the architecture, and again the WCH utilises MelaGen™ ReGen combining blue enriched and blue depleted sources into the COMO MelaGen™ luminaires, one of many primary environments for MelaGen™ ReGen technology to achieve an amazing lighting result laden allowing a wealth of health benefits. The COMO MelaGen™ ReGen luminaires, with their superb multi-faceted optics, offer soft illumination with high visual comfort for a pleasant working atmosphere for all staff to perform their duties, minimise glare and reduce eye strain while remaining alert, and for medical staff to interact with patients in a transitional hospital area from the beginning to the end of the day.