Five problems with clinic design

If the list below describes the design of your office, bring the problems to your employer’s attention and encourage solutions that support direct communication and collaboration between team members, eliminate waste and inefficiency, and ease the patient's journey through the clinic:

1. Physicians and staff often work in different parts of the medical office. They rarely have a consistent line of sight to their fellow team members, which hinders communication.

2. Exam rooms within a given clinic often vary significantly in their layout, and supplies are stored in different locations within the exam rooms, which wastes time. Computers are often shoehorned into exam rooms in ways that make interactions with patients (and the computers themselves) less effective.

3. Individual physician offices or consulting rooms isolate physicians from the team and reinforce hierarchy.

4. Clinical staff work areas are often not located near exam rooms, making staff less accessible.

5. Patient flow paths are often confusing and can result in patients leaving the office without follow-up appointments, referrals, and post-visit instructions.

Read the full FPM article: “Redesigning Your Work Space to Support Team-Based Care.”