The 2020s COVID experience has been credited as the driving force behind the rise of the ‘super clinic’ or the multi-discipline clinic that we know today.
Around this time the delivery of medical expertise began to change and we saw construction and renovation of larger spaces that provided for the delivery of allied healthcare under one roof. This is now commonly called co-located health services.
Multi-disciplinary clinic design
The idea of combining allied health under one roof presents challenges, in particular during the design phase. The architect or designer must have extensive skills and knowledge in regards to medical design, dental Design, allied health design and pharmacy design and any other specialist heath professional. The designer must have experience in designing co-located healthcare services and shared practice layout solution to achieve a sensible wholistic healthcare approach.
The challenge is not always designing a successful co-located clinic design on paper, but the real challenge is to ensure the layout is rewarding for all stakeholders. The success of a multi-disciplinary clinic design is in the clinic works in practice.
High on the priority is a smooth patient flow experience from one health provider to another. It is critical to ensure the patient has a rewarding and empowering experience.
Further, a successful co-located clinic requires a smart design to ensure employees workspaces allow them to perform their duties in a harmonious and efficient manner. Further it is important that the Shared practice layout ensures a smooth transition between workspaces.
When considering requirements of professional staff, a successful multi-disciplinary clinic design must ensure all tools of trade are at arms-length and to ensure all facilities are ergonomic. A safe workplace is critical to the success of a shared practice layout.
To design a successful Integrated medical-dental design will require most investors to partner with an experienced designer who has worked in co-located healthcare practices.
Reasons behind the rise in Co-located Healthcare / shared practice layout.
Patient Convenience
Probably the biggest driving force in the rise of multi-discipline clinic design is convenience for the patient. Humans prefer simple and familiar experiences. The thought being, once a patient is familiar with a location they are more likely to return.
In short, once a patient visits your clinic the retention rate is high. Accordingly, offering a wide range of healthcare solutions under one roof would be seen as a factor to retain patients and attract new ones.
Healthcare Co-ordination
Having allied health providers under one roof can allow for better clinician communication. Integrating doctors, nurses, specialists, allied health providers and other health professionals can help provide better more timely healthcare advice and aftercare.
Operational Efficiencies
Shared staff and shared facilities reduce costs. The cost of a medical fit out with offering shared services is lower for each investor ie the same toilet is used by patients waiting for dental practitioner and psychology patients. The same reception desk is used by staff welcoming dietitian patients and physiotherapist patients. Sharing the cost of infrastructure can reduce costs.
Holistic Vision
The patient will see a patient centered clinic – with a variety of healthcare providers are all under one roof. This can reduce stress and anxiety in patients knowing the healthcare location they attend offers a variety of healthcare solutions.
Faster Diagnosis
There can be instant cross-referral with healthcare providers under the same roof. Often results and diagnosis can be achieved at a faster return rate which can help alleviate patient concern and anxiety.
Cost-effective design and construction for ROI
Combining health care providers under one roof can reduce the costs by sharing resources, overheads and infrastructure costs which allows for a better return on investment.
Challenges of Group clinic fit outs
Confidentiality and Privacy
Whilst a benefit of a group clinic fit out is the ease of communication and sharing information, it can also be seen as a challenge to ensure patient data is not compromised.
Space Design
As noted above there is specialised skill involved in designing a shared space for different healthcare providers. This challenge is real and can not be dismissed. To achieve practical success and a seem-less flow in a co-located healthcare environment It would be prudent to ensure you partner with a qualified co-located design specialist to navigate the challenge.
Governance
The requirement for each healthcare provider to abide by legislation and government obligations can cause conflict in funding, clinic layout and design. Again, this challenge can be minimised by the use of a specialist designer with collocated healthcare design experience.
What does the future look like for co-located shared healthcare environments?
Sometimes these questions are hard to answer. And sometimes the answers are already in plain sight. Knowing that the ‘super clinic’ is already in operation and seeing the success we would have to assume this model will continue to impress. Accordingly, the future of Integrated medical-dental design combining various different healthcare designs like Medical Design, dental design, and allied healthcare design seems to be here to stay. The trend in the rise of the super clinic looks like it will continue.
Where to next?
If you are considering a medical fit out with co-located design, it is important to ensure you partner with a qualified designer and builder to ensure the planning and layout is efficient and practical. If you would like to chat to one of our designers, please phone us for an obligation free discussion on 03 9532 0350.
