Purpose: The main objective of this paper is, first, to assess a body of research evidence that articulates the impact of environmental and design factors on safety, quality of life, and health of the elderly who reside in geriatric hospitals or other elderly care facilities and, second, to draw out design implications that can be incorporated into design process and design decisions to help create healing environments for the elderly. Methods: Extensive literature review has been conducted to identify rigorous empirical studies that link the design of elderly care facilities to health-related outcomes and scrutinized peer-reviewed articles published in many different fields including architecture, psychology, nursing to gerontology. Results: The review found a growing body of rigorous studies that identified physical environmental and design factors that improve safety, quality of life, and health of the elderly in geriatric hospitals or other elderly care facilities. Implications: The findings of the review can be translated to design decisions to promote safety, quality of life, and health of the elderly in geriatric hospitals or other elderly care facilities.