Creating a Therapeutic Environment
For a doctor or dentist, patient care should be at the center of every decision, and that means creating a therapeutic environment. Your office is more than a simple chair and routine medical equipment. It’s a place where patients can initiate the healing process.
A patient may be anxious before or during their appointment. A therapeutic environment has a calming effect, reduces stress, and makes the patient feel comfortable with your care. In order for patients to have a positive experience, make sure you consider the details behind layout and design.
A therapeutic environment:
- Promotes healing
- Supports the needs of the patient and staff
- Provides a measurable impact on patient outcomes
It’s easy to focus in on the big decisions when you are trying to create a patient-centered practice. Your philosophical approach to care, the tools, and the technology are of course important.
Below are some basic factors to consider when it comes to creating a therapeutic environment that will improve your practice’s level of care.
Creating a Therapeutic Environment
Choose the Right Colors
Your room colors and furniture should promote peace and tranquility. Various shades of blue can help you create a calming effect. White walls offer a neutral feel and leave room for some paintings or a bolder color statement with furniture. Pediatricians can use more color in their waiting room, since they are designing with kids in mind.
While the impact of your color choices may not seem overtly important, it can have a lasting subliminal impact on the patient’s frame of mind and overall experience.
Reduce Environmental Stressors
A practice’s waiting room should always be clean and uncluttered. You can offer your patients a variety of reading materials to make their wait more convenient but keep them organized and presentable. It also helps to make sure they aren’t too dated.
If you have a children’s waiting area, make sure that the books and toys are routinely picked up and put away.
Make sure that furniture is routinely dusted, and floors are routinely swept and vacuumed. Other environmental stressors may include a glare from the lights or poor air quality. When these are eliminated, the patient experience can improve. These may seem like the smaller details, but they make a significant difference in patient care.
Noise Reduction
When you are designing your practice, make sure to factor in acoustics. Noise reduction plays a significant role in creating a therapeutic environment. As a patient, you wouldn’t necessarily want to hear everything occurring in the room next to you – especially if it is playing up any anxiety or fears brought on by your medical condition or the visit.
If sound is already a factor within your office, white noise machines may help. They create a stronger sense of calm amongst your patients, and they can show that you value patient privacy.
Exposure to Nature
Whenever possible you can design your office with a view of nature. Interior or exterior gardens, aquariums and artwork with a natural theme all offer a soothing feel.
Conclusion
Your practice’s reputation and brand are built on creating a positive patient experience. Creating a therapeutic environment plays a significant role. This type of soothing environment can have a positive impact on your staff as well – improving the level of patient care.
If you have any questions or would like to talk about what this means for your practice, contact us today!
What Your Dentist Waiting Room Says About Your Practice
Many patients are anxious leading up to a dental procedure. It stands to reason that your dentist waiting room should be a place where patients can rest and alleviate some of that anxiety before they enter the treatment area.
The waiting room showcases how well you pay attention to detail – and how much you value the entire patient experience. The smallest accommodations make a significant difference. You can use your office’s waiting room to strengthen your patient relationships.
5 Opportunities to Create a Dentist Waiting Room that Conveys the Right Message
Appropriate Wait Times – Your patients value their time. Long waits can lead to poor word of mouth, which can have a damaging impact to your practice in the age of Yelp, Google, and other review sites. Keeping your patients waiting for long amounts of time can negatively impact the relationship before the work even starts.
Even the patients who didn’t have any form of anxiety about their procedure may become a little nervous if given too much time to think about it beforehand.
Wall Art – Artwork is an excellent way to create a soothing environment that can take patients’ minds off their visit. There is more that can be done to take advantage of this space. Your walls can be used to help build trust, and a personal connection with your patients before they set foot into the treatment areas.
You could create a “patient of the month” board. You can use before and after smile photos and talk about the work that was done. You could display photos of your office staff in their personal hobbies. These photos may serve as an excellent conversation starter as the next patient makes their way into the treatment area.
Appropriate TV or Music – If your office specializes in children’s care, a Disney movie or age-appropriate cartoon can help calm kids before their appointment begins. If your office is focused more on adult care, it can help to have a handful of well-known movie staples on repeat.
When a patient mentally connects your office with one of their favorite movies, you win. The same thing goes for music. While elevator music may have a calming effect, a selection of oldies, classic rock, or well-known blues songs may send them out the door humming a song that they love.
Indulgences – A mini fridge stocked with water can make the wait a little more bearable. Coffee, juices, and other drinks also add an excellent touch. What about adding a super-comfortable arm chair, or even a massage chair? Those are the details people will remember upon leaving.
Interior Design – Make sure that the design details contribute to a soothing environment. Every detail involving the wall color, furniture, and artwork should contribute to a professional, relaxing environment.
For instance, blues can have a tranquil, peaceful feel. The couches, chairs, throw pillows, and wall art all offer opportunity for accent color.
Conclusion
You work hard to attract new patients and keep them happy with the experience. Make sure that your dentist waiting room isn’t killing that experience before they ever make it back to the treatment area.
Plastic Surgery Interior Office Design Tips
Our forte, at Apex Design Build, is to design and build the best medical and dental offices around. In fact, we have worked on a staggering array of healthcare office buildouts and renovations across our decades-long stay on the job. We began as a small family business, based on the values and passions of our founder. Today, we are one of the most innovative and dynamic design-build companies in all of America.
We believe in fully integrated design and plastic surgeon clinic construction services for our clients. We can also offer you bespoke services, such as custom cabinetry and storage solutions. Plus, a range of plastic surgery interior office design services to suit your needs. One that will control foot traffic, promote productivity, and ensure many happy patients keep returning.
First Impressions
It’s important to take note of how quickly your practice grows and in what direction. You should always be on the lookout for opportunities to improve. With the best practice possible, you can focus on your patients and how to make them happy. Plastic surgery interior office design is as essential as construction. It plays a major role in creating ambient healthcare environments to put patients at ease. You can use decorative elements like colors and furniture to create a positive vibe. But be sure to use these elements to make it clear which spaces are private and which open and semi-private. If your plastic surgery clinic doesn’t give the best first impression possible, then patients may not return. Think about why patients visit your practice. Patients want to reinvent themselves, but, most of all, to look beautiful. Your plastic surgery clinic should do the same.
Atmosphere
There’s no reason your plastic surgery should struggle with plain design and boring colors. In fact, this can often be detrimental to your success. It also has a positive effect on your metrics, such as patient retention, flow, and growth. It shouldn’t be too flashy, of course, but should provide a calm and relaxing atmosphere for patients. Plastic surgery is a sensitive subject after all, and patients want to feel at home before they enter surgery. We believe plastic surgeon clinic construction should work with interior design to create the best environment for your patients. We recommend taking advantage of our exceptional plastic surgery interior office design services.
Waiting Room
Comfort is everything in a good waiting room. This is one of the most important aspects of plastic surgery interior office design to get right. If you don’t get this one step right, other problems could be lurking where you least expect them. Everything starts with the waiting room, the first step on a patient’s journey. With our expertise, you can count on us to deliver a waiting room that ticks all the boxes for your plastic surgery interior office design. Not only can a good waiting room improve patients’ satisfaction, but also your plastic surgery clinic’s profitability.
Feng Shui for Great Interior Design in Your Doctor’s Office
At Apex Design Build, we draw on decades of architectural design and construction experience, working to deliver on your exact specifications. If you’re looking for an expert partner and advisor, we can help. We care about innovation, design, and we always strive to excel. Should you want us to, we can take the lead on the project or work with you to meet your needs.
Our years of practice mean we can offer sound advice on all manner of construction and design elements. You deserve a doctor’s office or dental clinic that will attract patients but also motivate your staff. Efficiency and productivity are core driving factors in our work. We specialize in design and construction services, but we can also offer interior design services, floor planning services, and more. Doctor Office Interior Design is important, much like dental clinic floor planning. But what are the key factors that determine great doctor’s office interior design? Here we examine the answers in detail for your benefit.
Feng Shui Principles
Using Feng Shui, you can identify stress points in your workplace and neutralize them to increase productivity. Doctor’s office interior design and dental clinic floor plan both rely on ergonomic and efficient use of space. If you don’t make the best use of your environment, this can lead to a lack of flow in the workplace. This will also have a negative effect on productivity, rendering your staff less efficient, which is bound to affect patient satisfaction.
Placement of Furniture
Also, think about where you place your furniture. In waiting rooms, for example, instead of having seating in the middle of the floor, where it could lead to traffic jams, place it along walls. This will improve the flow of the room and put patients at ease. It is a natural instinct to want your back to a wall, representing safety and will contribute to a calm atmosphere. Furniture is a big part of interior design, which you should always pay appropriate attention.
Lighting
Additionally, you should also avoid having too many bright lights that will dazzle your patients. This can also contribute to feelings of drowsiness, especially for staff who are working there all day. We recommend investing in layered lighting, or even a dimmer switch. Then you can adjust your lighting to suit the time of day. This will allow patients and staff to make a stress-free transition from your waiting room to your exam room. And from there to the treatment room, back to the reception, and outside again.
What We Can Do for You
With Apex, we can assure you that we will exceed your expectations. Should you need a dermatology or ophthalmology office, veterinary or plastic surgery clinic, we can help. Additionally, we also build custom cabinetry and millwork on request, to fit the contours and requirements of your workspace. We’ve already satisfied hundreds of clients and hope to serve many more. You can be one of many satisfied clients. All you have to do is call.
Top Ideas for Waiting Room Design
At Apex Design Build, we work closely with our clients to understand your needs better than you do! There is one element of any medical office that you should not give short shrift. The waiting room. Excellent waiting room design is all that stands between keeping a patient and losing them. Indeed, even small waiting room design can be surprisingly innovative and ergonomic. With Apex, you can rest assured your waiting room will make the right impression. We want to revolutionize medical office design, and the waiting room is the first piece of the jigsaw. Today we offer some expert tips on great waiting room design.
1- Aspects of Your Waiting Room Design
In any waiting room, comfortable seating is essential. Removable aspects like cushions and footstools are always welcome too. When thinking about chairs, it’s wise to invest in a quality piece that will last you a long time and serve your patients well. Tasteful art pieces can also achieve a sophisticated and calming atmosphere. Plants, too, will go a long way to improving the look of your waiting room. They can even improve air quality too. Moreover, space is important, so make the most of it. Dividers and partitions can create semi-private and even entirely private areas for staff, without compromising the flow of the room. They can also be used to efficiently direct patient traffic.
2- Patient Experience
Patient experience is everything. Your waiting room should cater to your clientele’s needs, be them families, private patients, young or old. Facilities to provide beverages are always conducive to a strong patient experience and a good atmosphere. Similarly, books, magazines, toys for children, and other small details can make a good experience a great one. What you also should remember, is that efficiency is integral to the best waiting room design. Placement of furniture, your reception, and the design of your floor space should make navigating your practice a simple experience. Patients want things to go smoothly, and even the smallest problem can seem larger than it is.
3- Small Waiting Room Design
Small waiting rooms can often seem chic and comfortable. They can also appear cramped and uncomfortable. In our experience, the secret to small waiting room design is comfort. But to achieve a comfortable atmosphere, you must maximize space. Select furniture pieces that won’t be too imposing, but can still accommodate a range of patients. Similarly, good Fengshui is essential in small waiting rooms. Position furniture along walls and in corners, leaving plenty of room to get around. Furthermore, lighter colors create the illusion of a larger space (they can also create a calming atmosphere for patients). Mirrors will also achieve the same effect.
