The
Great Work Blog

The future of medical office interior design is trending towards comfort. Patients are becoming more discerning consumers when it comes to choosing where they go for their healthcare. As a result, spa-like waiting rooms, private patient accommodations, fancy technology and lavish interior design are all becoming more common sights when you visit the doctor’s office.

The medical field is one of the most stressful work environments around, so burnout for medical staff can be quite high. The work involved can be both emotionally and physically draining, but employees in the medical field always need to be performing at their best.

If you’ve worked in healthcare for any length of time, you’ve probably asked yourself how you can improve your patient satisfaction scores. HCAHPS scores are one of the most important benchmarks for patient satisfaction in the healthcare industry, and they can also have a significant financial impact on your medical clinic. HCAHPS stands for "Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems", and it is a survey that measures a patient’s experience at a medical facility, with 30 percent of Medicare re-imbursements tied to achieving satisfactory scores.

 Whether a medical office is an independent clinic or one department in a large hospital, addressing and treating patients in a timely manner is always a priority. Even though lengthy wait times are common, it should be no surprise they also have long been associated with low scores on patient satisfaction surveys. No one likes sitting in a waiting room for an hour while wondering if the person next to them has the sniffles or the plague. Interestingly, patient satisfaction scores are not the only metric negatively affected by long waits.

There are a lot of things to consider when you’re thinking of redesigning your medical office. You have to consider what budget and resources you can afford to dedicate to your redesign, for example. What décor and furniture will best suite your practice. And what changes will ultimately benefit your practice and your patients the most.

Medical clinics are often at a disadvantage when it comes to finding adequate office space. Most commercial space is designed with retail businesses or conventional offices in mind. Neither of those layouts is ideal for medical clinics. As a result, medical practices often have to improvise when it comes to their medical office design. Sometimes that can mean trying to adapt a less traditional layout to meet your clinic’s needs, or trying to make a smaller-than-ideal health space work for a growing practice.

There are a lot of factors that go into designing and buying furniture for your waiting room. It can be hard to know where to start. You probably have a general idea of how much money you can afford to spend, but no idea how prioritize or budget for each item. The best way to start planning your design and creating a furniture budget is to break it down into categories.

Since the field of healthcare is always advancing, experts often consider what the future of healthcare will look like. Usually, they address changes in diagnostics or treatment. But one of the most important answers to that question may be found in the way medical facilities adapt their spaces to better accommodate staff, patients, and their families.

When you were growing up, your mother probably told you first impressions are the most important. She was right. And when it comes to the field of healthcare, the waiting room makes the first impression patients have of your medical office, and the services you provide. Today, a medical clinic’s first impression and its waiting room are more important than ever.

Every office move has some unique quirks. Some industries, however, require more than just your average office mover. For example, when you work in a medical office your move won’t be as simple as packing up chairs, desks and filing cabinets. Healthcare moves are in a category all their own.