Designer by accident

Here, 'PPM' - Private Practice Manager offers support for the backbone of your practice with this essential advice lifeline for you, your secretary or admin professional. The advice is from our experienced management team and the question comes from one of our clients in private practice. This is the first in a series of blog posts aiming to help improve the relationship between consultants and their admin teams.

Carefully prepare for the design process

 Q: We are looking at revamping the consulting rooms. My consultant has given me the unenviable task of coming up with a design that has to be both practical and aesthetically pleasing. I don’t actually know where to start but want to impress. Can you give me a few hints?

A: Get this right and you could be starting up your own design company! It is really about how you look at it. Firstly, determine who is going to use and visit the room. This involves a bit of role-play. Start with the consultant. Imagine ushering in your patient. The doctor does not want to be walking the patient to the far side of the room past medical equipment.Doctors want to be able to usher them straight into a chair.So, the desk and chairs go near to the entrance. After the consultation bit comes hand-washing and, if possible, the sink should be in view of the patient,which they find reassuring.

For most specialties, the physical examination involves some level of disrobing. If the examining couch is in the wrong place, this can be a source of embarrassment for all concerned. No patient wants to be undressing, even behind a curtain, if the door to the room is situated opposite this area. They will fear being disturbed. So place the couch and curtain around the corner from the door, if possible on the same wall as the door, so that anyone entering the room is unable to see the couch.

Now you are back to being the doctor. When examining, you will need the instruments, consumables and sample tubes completely to hand behind the curtain. The curtain can then remain closed for the examination, as there may be other people in the room accompanying the patient. How far away the curtain is from the couch is crucial, as you do not want the doctor and chaperone to be cramped and the curtain to be sticking to their backs as they carry out the examination.I would recommend the curtains that hang via a curved pole from the ceiling, as they look really nice and you can get them floor to ceiling, which again, increases patient comfort. You may also have free-standing medical equipment in the room, which can look a bit alarming to patients, so put this out of their eyeline when they are consulting.

Storage can be placed around all the essential equipment but should look as clean and aesthetically pleasing as possible. Avoid glass cabinets and open shelving, as this will mean the patients can see what is being stored, which is likely to be medical supplies and other unsightly things. For phlebotomy, work out where the patient will sit, where the necessary consumables will be and, most importantly, calculate the shortest and safest route between the patient and the sharps bin, which should ideally be situated close to hand, bracketed to the wall for safety. Watch the height and ensure the phlebotomist does not have to hold the used sharp above the patient’s head to place in the bin.

Now imagine you are the Care Quality Commission Inspector. Walk through your design again in detail, with safety in mind. Having established the placement of fixtures and fittings, you can then concentrate on the colour scheme and overall feel of the room and this is down to your undoubted good taste and imagination.

Present your ideas with a Power-Point presentation, if possible,and include where to source all of the equipment, together with the associated costs. Include a quote for the actual works to be carried out. If you want to be really fancy and can justify it in the budget, purchase a copy of something like SmartDraw, which has templatesfor room design and so on. Tasks like this do not come along every day in our business, so enjoy it and get stuck in!

Photo courtesy of africa / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Subscribe to receive our Blog via e-mail