New Design Trends for Clinics

New Medical Office Design Trends for Clinics

The world is witnessing numerous changes on many fronts. With the growth of technology, many industries are adopting new ways of doing business. The medical field is also experiencing these shifts as each practitioner is now utilizing better equipment, medicine, and medical office design. This article seeks to inform you about the latest trends in healthcare design.

Trends

Local clinics

Lately, many healthcare organizations are repositioning more services in local clinics rather than in acute care settings. This is a sensible move because it helps in reducing costs, growing market share, and improving outcomes. Additionally, recent healthcare reform that roots for population health management has also inspired this growth of clinics. In addition to the demand for primary care, specialty and multispecialty practices are other factors that have driven the current surge. Currently, there is a high demand for clinics that solely focus on women/children, sports, or orthopedic treatments. It is therefore not a surprise to see many large healthcare institutions opting to establish specialty clinics to broaden their reach and maximize service offerings.

From an exam table to a coffee table

It is apparent that not all patients who visit a clinic require an exam. In the past, most medical buildings would consist of 100- 120 square foot exam rooms, which were usually their main rooms. Nowadays, due to emerging trends, designers are adopting a better setting that encourages open conversations between the patients and their care providers.

That is the reason why clinics now have the consultation area separated from the examination room. By creating a homely space, patients will feel relaxed and at ease when visiting your clinic. In consultation rooms, clients are able to discuss their issues openly without them feeling any pressure.

Group exam room

It is a new medical office design that caters for chronic illness patients. A group exam room answers the need to provide health and wellness education in clinics. Such a space enables patients suffering from similar diseases to meet and discuss their conditions. In addition to this, doctors are also able to provide healthcare education to a collective group as individual check-ups go on in adjacent exam spaces. Creating larger meeting and exam areas is quite important now that clinics play a big role in educating masses about health matters.

Flexible Spaces

Since building uses change over time, many clinics are now adopting spaces that doctors can use for different purposes, depending on the need. By using common plumbing walls and modular wall systems for every space in the clinic, exam rooms can easily become consultation rooms. Even though it is expensive to install common features for every room, it quite advantageous as it enables care providers to avoid a lot of downtime and expenses that go into remodeling these spaces.

Patients first

This is another trend where hospitals are setting up local clinics supporting multidisciplinary teams that visit patients in their homes. It seeks to solve the problem of patients having to travel long distances, multiple times, to see different care providers. In this design model, one clinic hosts experts from various specialty clinics such as nose, throat, and ear. These experts visit patients and provide collective care, eradicating the need for sick individuals to travel long distances for treatment.

The above trends give insight into the future of medicine where it is likely that hospitals will only admit the highest acuity patients. Likewise, clinics will have fewer visitors as practitioners will care for many patients at home via email, Face Time, and other ways. Current trends will definitely have an effect on the healthcare built environment. It is advantageous for any practitioner to consider current trends as early as now.