Preparing for the healthcare redesign?

Designing healthcare environments for the new consumer patient.

by Philip O. Wince, Jr., AIA, LEED AP

Healthcare has changed dramatically in the last two years. The economic meltdown, coupled with the uncertainty of federal healthcare reform, has left many practices struggling to remain competitive in a healthcare industry that has become increasingly consumer-focused. The trends and challenges that healthcare systems and individual practitioners are facing revolve around three critical underlying themes:

Consumer Focused

Physicians will need to understand employers are moving to High Deductible Insurance plans where the patient consumer will have more choice in their healthcare providers.  Practices will need to address how they can become more competitive and “consumer-focused’.  This means that in, addition to the healthcare environment, greater focused will need to be placed on the consumer’s experience and convenience of care.  Your customers will be your patients, not insurance companies.  To remain competitive, greater emphasis must be placed on providing a well-designed, scalable healthcare experience, in a location that is convenient to where your consumers live and shop.

Financial Viability and Focus on Revenue Generation

Since 2008, funding resources for physician practices have become difficult to access, and tax-exempt bonds are nearly impossible to access. Charitable contributions are dwindling, and private lending has been restricted to all but the most financially stable practices.  So, as practitioners begin thinking about their healthcare environments in response to an increasingly consumer-driven market, it will be imperative to consider financial vehicles that address their facilities and healthcare environments in a cost-conscience manner.  More practitioners will be shifting the monetization of their facilities, and transferring responsibility for owning and running their facilities to others.  As a result, a greater focus will be placed on facility planning and design as a mechanism to reduce door-to-procedure times, and to facilitate the highest quality of care metrics achievable.  90% of the American population has medical needs which will be satisfied by increasingly competitive, consumer-choice driven model. Therefore it is critical to create a designed healthcare experience that reduces operational inefficiencies, increases the overall quality of care, and competitively positions your practice to generate higher revenues.

Adaptability and Flexibility

Rapid advances in medical technology will continue to drive the need for flexible healthcare facilities. State-of-the-art equipment already offers robust options in patient care and unprecedented access to medical records and drug prescriptions through digital record integration.  The typical lease on medical office space is about five years. Similar to retail environments, most practices will have to “refresh” or update their environments every 5 to 7 years to retain loyal patients and to attract new patients. This requires that medical facility design strives for “future proofing” by considering future infrastructure connections, minimizing expansion barriers, and allows for easy future growth.

By DRingler on 4/30/10, In Architecture, Healthcare, Tags healthcare architecture, healthcare redesign, new consumer patient