This is especially important in healthcare design where there is always the need to create better environments for patients and medical staff.

The following is how research can be integrated into healthcare design:

1) Focus on the key performance goals of the company: The company’s goals must be clearly set out so everybody is on the same page and so the design and construction of the practice goes smoothly.

2) Gather knowledge, understand users, test prototypes: Use mock-ups storyboards, experience mapping and simulations to test different concepts.

During this step, it’s essential to approach the project with empathy – putting yourself in the patient’s shoes, all while testing different technology processes and materials to see what works best.

3) Link design solutions to performance hypothesis: Once different key concepts have been tested, brainstorm design solutions and map each one with the intended outcome.

Every decision is a performance hypothesis (having artwork will reduce stress).

4) Ensure design is implemented as planned, aiming for targeted performance goals:

When the design is completed, it’s crucial to keep an eye on the project through the documentation and construction phases.

5) Test the hypothesis: When the healthcare environment has been completed, it’s time to test the hypothesis to see if the design has been successful. Ask the question: “To what extent did the project succeed/fail/meet goals and why?”

In healthcare design, multiple factors have to come together (operational processes and organisational culture) to improve outcomes. Research plays a hugely important role in this regard.

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Certain steps that can be taken to ensure that you’re not going over your budget include:

Hire a fitout company: The most important thing you can do is hire a healthcare design company who will be able to take care of the construction process from beginning to end. At Levitch Design Australia, we have full construction capability and have constructed and designed dental clinics and medical practices Australia-wide for over 25 years. Hiring one company to do it all can save the hassle of hiring different people for different stages of the construction.

Carry out an extensive risk assessment: During the planning process, an extensive risk assessment must be undertaken by the owner, architect and builders to identify any potential risks that may emerge during the construction phase.

Finalise the design before construction: A detailed plan, and drawings of the final design should be drawn up and a rough tape outline should be laid out on the floor so the layout can be visualised. Everybody should be on the same page before construction commences so there are no regrets or mistakes made.

Virtual Reality: Levitch Design Australia has invested in Virtual Reality technology to improve the experience for our clients in the visualisation of their future healthcare environment. With the use of state of the art software, the design team can create a “virtual reality” tour of a clients’ practice in the planning phase, long before the practice is costed up. This provides our clients and our team valuable insights into how the practice will look, feel and flow.

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The point here is clear; for Australian’s wanting to see a healthcare professional, there is an abundance of choice and the market is congested with options for consumers.

Traditional concepts of loyalty and customer retention no longer apply to the modern consumer and the medical practice is no different. Patients are informed consumers who make sensible and rational decisions about the value and benefits that accrue from their purchasing behaviour.

Consumers critically assess the end-to-end experience in a medical practice. For the practice, the measurement of patient experience and patient satisfaction is a very complex dynamic. For the patient, it is much more straightforward – if they don’t like it, they vote with their feet and look for a better experience at a different practice.

The challenge for healthcare professionals is; how to stand-out and differentiate themselves in congested markets with increasingly demanding consumers where switching from one practice to another is simple, straightforward and no longer an impediment?

BUILD A PRACTICE DESIGNED FOR SUCCESS

For modern consumers, many of the services they purchase have been significantly upgraded and improved over time – think about gastropubs, gourmet cafes, gold class cinemas and ridesharing services as examples. 3 out of 4 consumers would try a new brand or company to have a better experience, so for a medical practice, as the customer experience is critical to patient retention and growth, it has never been more important for the medical practitioner to understand what their patient’s want, need and expect.

Author Lewis Carbone identified that the patient experience is made up of sensory building blocks or clues that are delivered to the patient both consciously and unconsciously, and that up to 95% of what influences a consumer’s conscious choice is the unconscious interpretation of these clues. Because the practice environment is the primary location of these clues, design choices play a dominant role in influencing patient satisfaction.

TURN YOUR VISION INTO REALITY

Levitch Design Australia crafts high-end specialist clinics for doctors and surgeons. Established for over 30 years and credited with designing some of Australia’s most successful practices, Levitch Design Australia combines both the art and science of healthcare practice design.

Get in touch – call us on 1300 11 22 11 or email info@levitch.com.au

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The patient experience represents a critical component of a medical practice’s ability to attract and retain patients. When patients have positive experiences, they develop trust and become more engaged in their own care and develop a stronger sense of loyalty to your organisation.

Perhaps the biggest buzzword in customer experience is “engagement”. Engagement is a measure of how much customers feel they are in a relationship with a product, business or brand.

For a medical practice, it can be challenging to get inside the minds of your patients and one of the best tools for examining engagement is the customer journey map.

The steps to mapping out the customer journey 
The customer journey is the process by which a patient interacts with a medical practice in order to achieve a goal and a journey map is a visual representation of the process. These interactions may be via the telephone, online or in-person.

A customer journey map is a useful tool to understand the steps a customer goes through when engaging with a healthcare practice, and the actions, thoughts and emotions your patients will experience from the first to the final touchpoint.

As different patients experience the practice in different ways, the first step is to define personas. A persona is a fictional character created to represent a specific, but typical, type of patient and may include, for example, a mother with young children or an elderly patient. You need to create personas for different patient types and use them to describe the different experience of different personas at different touchpoints.

The second step is to define your customer stages and identify touchpoints. Journey maps are typically organised by customer stages and each stage should represent the customer’s journey, not the internal process steps of the practice. These stages might include arrival and include the journey from car park to reception, or the reception and check-in stage. For each stage, you need to map touchpoints. A touchpoint is a step in the journey where the customer interacts with the practice.

The third step involves examining how the customer feels and thinks during each interaction as well as what he/she will say, do, hear, etc. in any given situation. These are the emotional experiences of a customer at every stage of the journey. Walking through each stage with your team will help you identify any points of friction within the customer experience.

You may wish to involve real patients in the process as most people are happy to help if they believe you are genuinely interested in their experience and will use their feedback to improve things for others but ensure you help them explore what they expect the process to be like and what they think, feel, see, hear and do during each stage and at each touchpoint.

The fourth step is to understand whether there is a gap between the ‘lived’ experience of a customer and the ‘desired’ experience of the practice, and if so, to identify opportunities to improve the customer experience. The business benefit is obvious – fewer pain points results in a better customer experience and higher engagement with the practice.

Creating customer journeys does not have to be a time-consuming process but taking a ‘day in the life of a patient’ approach helps create a shared understanding of the customer experience and offers team members the opportunity to contribute to improving that experience.

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