When people invest effort in their own wellbeing and that of their loved ones, it’s a big time commitment at every step of the process. Patients often wait months for a doctor’s appointment, days to receive information, several minutes or even hours to see a care provider on the appointment day, and sometimes even more frustrating amounts of time to learn a diagnosis.
Unfortunately, waiting is simply part of the game and often unavoidable. But the good news is that designers can shape the healthcare waiting experience into something less annoying and more manageable.
Steelcase Health has been working on new research into how well-designed transition spaces can help guide positive waiting experiences and patients’ overall perception of the quality of care they’re receiving – a metric today’s healthcare organizations can’t ignore.
“Waiting rooms, at their worst, can look and feel like holding pens, designed to seat the most patients in as little room as possible, providing little physical or emotional comfort,” posits Steelcase’s new white paper on waiting rooms. “Patients are left lacking – lacking privacy, information, storage space and access to technology. In these environments, the waiting room experience contributes to low expectations for the quality of care patients may receive from clinicians…
“At their best, these spaces can offer a smooth transition from physical pain and emotional uncertainty to vital information and relief.”
Healthcare organizations and care providers are feeling pressure to deliver more patient-centered care and better satisfaction scores. The industry as a whole is focusing on decreasing stress and promoting active engagement, and Steelcase notes that progressive healthcare organizations are “already leveraging their waiting spaces as a competitive advantage, and seeing positive results.
To set the context, it’s important to first note that while patients want the best care, it can be difficult for them to figure out what doctor or organization is best for them.
They “often find it difficult to understand the differences in qualifications and expertise of individual staff members, clinical teams and overall healthcare organizations,” despite having “more access to rankings, comparisons and data than ever before…so they rely on their experiences and judgment instead. They may not know an organization’s percentage of mortality and morbidity, but they often look to more subjective measures they understand – like whether they feel listened to, comfortable, and if the environment was tolerable.”
“This expanded definition of patient satisfaction is no longer contained to just interactions with clinicians – it’s the entire experience, including what happens in the transition space.”
Steelcase Health researchers partnered with a major academic medical center in the southeastern United States to conduct several days of observations to understand current realities of waiting rooms. The researchers identified four common mistakes being made in transition space design:
>Not enough chairs with direct sight lines to information sources.
>No room to place personal items or technology devices.
>Not enough separation from strangers; no intentional group space for families to gather.
>Chair configurations for large groups, rather than seating for one or two.
“We’re working with healthcare organizations to create spaces that accommodate a range of activity preferences, integrate technology and information sharing and create a supportive environment,” says Michelle Ossmann, RN, MSN, PhD, director of Health Environments for Steelcase Health, in the white paper. “Transforming waiting into productive time makes the experience more meaningful and helps prepare patients for the next step in their journey.”
Steelcase Health proposes three guiding principles that medical organizations should use to rethink their transition spaces:
>Balancing sight lines. While organizations should acknowledge and plan for the value of views to the outside and natural lighting, Steelcase researchers found people orienting themselves toward information sources instead – “wanting to see and hear the clinician call their name or see a status update on a monitor…Understanding this balance of sight lines between information and views to the outdoors creates the need for new ways of arranging seating and placing monitors.”
“Information can be the antidote to anxiety in waiting areas,” says Ms. Ossmann. “People are afraid to miss important information from healthcare providers.”
>Rethinking density. “Steelcase Health researchers noted that only 80% of occupied chairs had people sitting in them – the remaining chairs held personal items or drinks…By creating small group seating and accommodating storage, fewer seats are required for patients and their families – saving space and reducing financial investment while creating opportunities to deliver more patient value.”
“This isn’t about packing the most people in the waiting room,” says Ossmann. “It’s about responding to their behaviors in a more intuitive way – a way that helps relieve some of the stress of being at a medical facility. Simply giving people some additional physical space also gives them additional emotional space.”
>Creating separation and togetherness. “Steelcase Health researchers also observed that people prefer to be separated from strangers but close to family members.”
“Waiting room design emphasizes individual seats next to each other, often in long, continuous lines. To achieve a balance of separation and togetherness, [Designers] can create zones that allow families and individuals different spaces to support their preferences and behaviors – ranging from family conversations to privately engaging with an electronic device to resting and reading.”
Steelcase Health’s second phase of research involved creating new, more engaging transition spaces in one of its partner’s clinics – a specialty clinic that often sees an average of 100 patients and family members a day, with wait times varying from 30 minutes to several hours.
Steelcase created new transition spaces that included:
>Modular seating, with wider seats and wider arm rests which provides greater comfort, connection and privacy
>Double seats to create social opportunities and encourage family groupings
>Chairs that feature a slight rocking movement and supplemental physical support for post-operative patients
>An improved coffee space with a round café table
>Optimal sideways views of both the outdoors and staff areas
>Receptacles in seating bays for easy technology access and charging
>Tables with space dividers for additional privacy
The researchers compared patient responses from pre- and post-surveys, mapping sessions and interviews, and found that patients prefer the new waiting room designs on multiple metrics. Results included increased comfort levels; greater ability to perform activities; easier access to power and technology; additional speech and visual privacy; and added pleasantness from furniture, flooring, lighting, color scheme and pictures.
“The results we’re seeing show we’re moving in the right direction,” notes Ms. Ossmann. “We view these newly updated waiting areas as a potential competitive advantage for our customers and a more pleasant experience for patients. Updating transition spaces is a very achievable change to make and delivers valuable results almost immediately.”
Healthcare organizations and designers who see the hidden potential in transition spaces have an advantage; they can make a relatively cost-effective change – improving their waiting room experiences – to ease stressors and improve overall healthcare experience for both patients and care providers.