Space Planning / Design

Medical space planning is an integral part of the healthcare office design. Effective office space design can reduce real estate costs, improve patient care, and raise staff performance and morale.

Evaluating space needs when moving into a new building, adding a new associate or ancillary service, or simply expanding the size of the suite is a critical element of successfully designing and utilizing the medical space. Although there's no simple uniform equation, assistance from the professionals at McShane Healthcare can provide needed insights and trusted expertise to create the right solution. Considering the more than 30 specialties in addition to primary care, there is no single workspace layout to meet individual physician needs. In fact, space planning is truly an art. This space magic can best be conjured up through consultation with experienced medical real estate providers such as McShane Healthcare. The right space can offer numerous benefits including the elimination of redundancies, increased efficiency and greater productivity.

Healthcare professionals are utilizing the current economy as an opportunity to streamline business operations, and are becoming more efficient by using their space more wisely and allowing for future growth and expansion.

There are several common elements to be mindful of regardless of specialty when determining future space requirements:

• Decide what ancillary service(s) you will provide now and in the future

  Planning for ancillary services requires looking ahead to future trends. In recent years, physicians have reaped financial rewards from providing ancillary services such as MRIs, sleep labs, physical therapists, outpatient surgery centers and imaging centers, while services such as X-rays—and their attendant reimbursement once common in most doctors' offices—are today non-existent. Medical professionals need to plan for the latest income stream.




• Plan for expansion

  Physicians and healthcare providers should also consider whether or not they plan to add more staff in a year or two. A doctor planning to expand his or her practice should secure an area where there is contiguous space available. Another option is to lease from a real estate owner, like McShane Healthcare, who can provide additional alternatives within a local area to accommodate your space requirement needs. It is highly recommended that physicians build for tomorrow and not focus solely on today's demands.




• Eliminate potential space use redundancies

  By consulting with the McShane Healthcare professionals, healthcare providers can design their space needs to provide the most effective space plan and efficient workplace flow. It's often recommended to cluster exam rooms in order to move quickly from one to another. Generally, a recessed workstation is installed in the middle of that cluster to study charts and make phone calls between appointments. If physicians can save time between patient encounters, it will allow for additional patient visits each day.




• HIPAA impact

  The federal mandate for patient privacy also influences medical space planning. From a planning and design perspective, the design must insulate areas of patient dialogue exchange from adjacent areas.




• Electronic medical records (EMRs)

  The Medicare and Medicaid Health Information Technology: Title IV of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, signed into law by the Obama administration on February 17, 2010, is greatly impacting traditional medical office space, which devotes large areas of space to storing charts and medical records. By 2014, all physician groups are required to have Electronic Medical Records (EMRs). If that system is not in place, the provider will likely encounter reimbursement issues with Medicare. Numerous practices that install EMRs will wish to redesign office environments to maximize the space that can now be used for income-generating procedures.