Consumer expectations across various industries have significantly shifted towards on-demand services, including healthcare. Patients now tend to avoid long wait times and complicated processes when seeking care from medical practitioners.
More and more patients are opting for alternatives to the traditional hospital model, including virtual consultations, telemedicine, and mobile health apps. These services allow patients to obtain medical advice, iaformation, prescriptions, diagnoses and even prognoses without physically visiting a clinic or hospital and sitting through lengthy waits.
These shifting patient expectations have generated increased demands for more convenient, seamless experiences and put strain on healthcare providers to implement new solutions.
Self-Rooming Model of HealthcareThe self-rooming model represents an exciting next step for healthcare. By centralizing more functions to one physical location, the set up allows patients to navigate themselves directly to their exam room using facility design combined with app-based technologies, eliminating several points along the traditional journey that frustrate and slow patient experience (for more on waiting room alternatives see this Healthcare Design article.).
Conventional healthcare environments tend to be marked by rigidity and redundancies that create bottlenecks during check-in and administrative processes, unpredictable provider schedules, and feelings of helplessness among patients who associate waiting times with satisfaction of care. With the self-rooming model, conventional healthcare settings may become less rigid and redundant over time.
Technology such as apps or digital scheduling and record keeping tools has revolutionized healthcare design models by adding efficiency to operations and patient management; giving patients back control over their healthcare experience.
So this not only benefits healthcare providers’ bottom lines but also enhances delivery and quality of care.
Village Health Partners in Frisco, Texas adopted a self-rooming model that met patient expectations for on-demand, seamless experiences from online scheduling to telemedicine in 2020. By eliminating waiting rooms altogether and adopting self-rooming instead, this change aimed not only to enhance patient perceptions and experience, but also increase organization throughput.
Case Study: Village Health PartnersWant to learn more about Village Health Partners? Check out their self-rooming system that allows patients to easily book appointments from the convenience of their own homes, use an app to signal their arrival at an appointment, follow guided steps directly to their designated space, and gain access to additional information and scheduling options when needed – all within seconds!
At their arrival, patients are informed via an integrated app of the clinic that their exam room is ready. With directions provided to help reach it through a central corridor.
Exam rooms are organized into pods off a main corridor with five exam rooms in each pod. Secured doors separate off-stage activities like scheduling, charting and provider collaboration while still permitting staff access to these exam areas.
Village Health Partners’ self-rooming model strives to minimize time and space restrictions in order to minimize disruptions that often accompany patient journeys.
Self-Rooming Model : When it comes to vital sign measurements, lab tests, and exams, this simplified model streamlines the experience for patients.
Check-in can be completed online prior to being assigned an exam room and all tasks, such as blood tests, temperature measurements, identification verification and insurance verification as well as vaccinations and scheduling are performed in this single room reducing decision points for both staff and patients.
Improving Staff Operations
By centralizing delivery of care, staff operations become more efficient, leading to optimized throughput, decreased wait times and improved patient management; all with reduced “elopers”.
For those who prefer more traditional experiences or don’t have access to technology, a check-in desk provides support and can accommodate special needs. Family spaces outside patient rooms provide welcoming environments that serve as reception or waiting areas for accompanying guests.
Village Health Partners enhances patient navigation and operations efficiency by strategically placing commonly utilized amenities. Knowing that most patients require lab work, their facility strategically places the lab closer to the front entrance so as to cut walking time and hasten patient progression.
Integrated technology verifies that patients have completed all necessary steps, including paperwork, prior to arriving in an exam room. This adds predictability to the process while eliminating disruption and confusion during their journey.
Electronic medical records for each patient provide scheduling, charting, notes, contact and insurance information that follows them around seamlessly – eliminating tedious paperwork filling.
Wayfinding and Safety Considerations While facility designs typically allocate one physician per five exam rooms, this new model allows for standard pods that offer greater flexibility for physicians during peak times. Village Health’s Plano location uses this arrangement; each pod consists of five exam rooms and one patient restroom.
By standardizing pod layout and each exam room with a predictable set of furnishings and equipment, including a supply cart to provide additional resources, physicians can quickly switch between pods if patient volume requires extra exam space. Quick adaptation means meeting facility needs or accommodating special patient requests or appointments formats while being responsive to physician availability needs.
With patients being responsible for finding their designated areas, effective and regular communication between staff and clients is vital in making sure patients arrive in time and at the desired place. Reducing stress by simplifying decisions points and offering clear wayfinding is paramount in order to guarantee patient arrival on schedule.
At Village Health’s Plano clinic, its layout follows general street grids. Local street names have even been added as pod designations. Intersections off Main Street leading into side hallways were identified as critical decision points.
Built-in banquettes and furniture clusters provide loved ones a space to wait privately during an exam while also serving as an additional means of wayfinding.
Due to increased autonomy given to patients, additional considerations need to be taken for security and access. To account for patient wandering while satisfying security needs, there should be a clearly-defined distinction between on-stage activities and off-stage activities.
At Plano Village Health’s location in Plano, patients have access to a primary corridor, side hallways and exam rooms; each pod can be reached through an access-controlled door by staff members.
All off-stage areas are linked, enabling staff to move freely between clinic areas while managing interactions and engagements with patients without interruption or interference from other staff members. By offering various restriction levels tailored specifically for the population mix and needs of their facility, staff can effectively balance security requirements against patient independence.
Prioritizing Patient Satisfaction
Implementation of self-rooming not only addresses immediate concerns regarding long wait times but also reinforces an emerging trend towards providing healthcare experiences which prioritize patient satisfaction.
Village Health Partners identified waiting rooms as an obstacle in providing easy access to care for patients, which were both an inefficiency in throughput and provided less value than exam rooms. Their design solution addressed this challenge by eliminating them entirely.
Self-rooming models empower patients to take control of their healthcare journey and help alleviate feelings of powerlessness associated with traditional waiting rooms, creating an opportunity for them to feel more empowered about taking responsibility for themselves and taking charge.