Providing More Value with Exam Room Design While Improving Patient Outcomes and Experiences

10/25/2024

Design has the power to transform and strengthen the healthcare experience for both providers and patients. More specifically, exam room design can have a direct impact on a health system’s ability to achieve the objectives of the Quintuple Aim framework.

To ensure they are designing to meet healthcare clients’ needs, architects and designers who work in the clinical space need to understand the forces driving changes in outpatient care and how healthcare systems are looking to exam room design and processes to alleviate pressure from these macro-level trends.

There are many forces driving change in the US healthcare system, including a major move from volume to value payment models, decentralization of care, digitalization of information, consumerism, consolidation of care providers and payers, and a shifting of care delivery to physician offices These forces are causing significant disruption and everyone has a stake in it, including providers, payers, patients and regulatory agencies.

The Quintuple Aim provides a framework for alignment between healthcare customers and helps guide everyone involved in the project in the right direction to ultimately enhance the quality of care provided.

Many healthcare systems strive to achieve the five pillars of the Quintuple Aim:

1. Improve provider experience

2. Improve patient experience

3. Reduce healthcare costs

4. Drive better clinical outcomes

5. Achieve health equity for all

Taking an evidence-based design (EBD) approach offers a way to achieve those pillars and ultimately meet the objectives and vision of any project. Adopting an EBD approach when establishing or renovating an outpatient environment elevates the strategic importance of equipment, exam room layout and design decisions, and ensures they are based on proven research and best practices.

One of the strengths of the EBD approach lies in the simple fact that it links equipment and design decisions directly to desired clinical outcomes. It helps healthcare organizations and their design partners create an ambulatory care environment conducive to achieving better outcomes through enhanced patient/caregiver experience, standardization and interaction at the point of care.

This approach helps foster a shared understanding of how the layout and configuration of the exam room and the equipment it contains can significantly impact the effectiveness and safety of the care that happens there. It also helps those involved in the project to identify and incorporate new workflow design options that move away from the typical linear design of care environments and toward a better-designed experience.

As part of this EBD approach, healthcare systems are also implementing lean best practices through collaborative simulation workshops to establish the voice of their staff in helping identify root cause problems in the exam room and create better processes. They are outlining/planning and/or conducting mock simulations in the pre-design stage of a project, which include processes and equipment, for inclusion in the design stage.

By simulating the various processes and procedures anticipated for the space, these mockups can also help the design team understand the clinical processes that the built environment is intended to support and the implications when multiple users utilize the space simultaneously. 

When Midmark is involved in a project, especially those relating to a new facility build or retrofit of an existing facility, our design consultation experts can be a valuable resource for architects, contractors and interior designers. We work directly with them to help ensure facility design and room configurations align with equipment and furniture needs, and our customers’ desired workflows are achievable.

We also strive to understand the specific needs and challenges of our healthcare customers. This can include joining our customers on a Gemba Walk of their facility to identify opportunities for efficiency gains and workflow enhancements or a visit to the Midmark experience center to discuss design elements and best practices. The Midmark design recommendations that come out of these activities are shared with architects and designers handling the project.

This approach helps elevate the value that facility, workflow and technology/equipment design can play in enhancing healthcare experiences, improving clinical outcomes and increasing operational efficiencies.

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