Midmark Helps Columbia Medical Practice Enhance the Healthcare Experience in its New Facility

8/14/2024

At Midmark, we are always eager to have conversations with our healthcare customers about clinical design and its power to transform and strengthen the healthcare experience for both providers and patients.

We enjoy it when customers understand that better care starts with a better-designed experience and they are committed to incorporating customer empathy and design thinking into decisions that impact the point of care ecosystem. This shared mindset between us and the customer helps guide everyone involved in the right direction and ultimately enhances the quality of care provided.

Columbia Medical Practice (CMP) is one of those healthcare customers. For instance, given the CEO’s experience with lean management principles that minimize waste and improve ongoing processes, he very much appreciates our approach to using these same principles to optimize clinical care. There is an agreed understanding that using lean principles to drive clinical performance and operational efficiencies can also help enhance patient care and outcomes.

A Midmark customer since 1989, CMP is the largest physician-owned, multispecialty primary care practice in Maryland’s Howard County. After 40 years in the same facility in Columbia, the practice needed to move to a new facility to accommodate further growth and eliminate the workflow and patient flow challenges created by its current facility.

Given the strong relationship between the two organizations, CMP knew Midmark could help make their vision of a larger, more empathetic and efficient facility a reality. It was also important that the new facility highlight CMP’s commitment to delivering quality care to its patient population. The practice serves about 40,000 active patients. CMP was confident that Midmark’s clinical design experience and innovative equipment could help ensure this.  

Midmark worked closely with CMP’s team to repurpose an existing structure they leased for their new space, completely redesigning and renovating it to create a modern, custom-designed medical hub.

The Midmark team joined the CMP team on a Gemba Walk, a lean method that promotes continuous improvement, of the current facility to identify opportunities for efficiency gains and workflow enhancements in the new facility. This provided the information needed to move into the design phase.

The CMP team then visited the Midmark experience center to tour the medical venue and discuss design elements and best practices during a Midmark Live Design session. The Midmark design recommendations that came out of this visit, and were informed by the Gemba Walk, were then shared with architects handling the renovation project.

One of the things that impressed the CMP team during the visit was the Midmark technical support team. They appreciated that the technical support team has access to medical equipment in the technical support space and uses it to troubleshoot and solve issues during service calls.

The visit also gave the CMP team an opportunity to experience firsthand the clinical equipment and technology they were considering for the new facility. This included Synthesis^® Wall-Hung Cabinetry, which is designed specifically for the clinical environment and features a modular design so it can adapt quickly and easily as the needs of the space change.

The CMP team spoke with our chief medical officer on the importance of consistent blood pressure (BP) capture, as well as the clinical and monetary impact of inaccurate BP. The team understood the impact proper positioning can have on blood pressure readings, which is why they also decided to add the Midmark 626 Barrier-Free^Ò Examination Chair with Patient Support Rails+ and Midmark IQvitals^® Zone^™.

The new facility opened in July and is an example of the type of modern clinical environment that can be created when there is a shared understanding on the important role design plays in the delivery of quality care.

Click here to see how Midmark harmonizes clinical space, workflow and technology to design better care experiences.