Whether your patient leaves a happy customer comes down to aesthetics, functional efficiency and treatment effectiveness. While we can’t help with treatment effectiveness (we trust you’ve got that well and truly covered), we can help maximise patient satisfaction through aesthetics and functional efficiency.
How? Because this comes down to the design of your practice.
When a patient visits your practice, chances are they’ll be feeling sick, tired, emotional or irritable. In these times of heightened emotional states, our senses are on overdrive and they instinctively relate their surroundings to their feelings.
A well-designed practice that uses sight, sound and smell to help arrest those negative emotions, helps create a positive space for the patient and reduces the environmental stressors that could negatively affect their experience. This allows you, the healthcare professional, to work with you patients to resolve their health issues, without additional, unnecessary stress.
But before we dive into how we can help create a positive space for your clients, let’s explore how the practice environment affects emotion in the first place.
How does environment affect emotion?
There are a range of environmental factors that affect how people react to a space, from noisy heating vents to the colour of the walls, to the comfort of the chairs in your waiting room.
While everyone has their own tastes and preferences, there are some general overarching environmental factors that affect patients’ moods, for better or for worse.
You may not be surprised to find that the common environmental stressors include low ceilings, loud noises, glare, poor air quality, uncomfortable room temperatures and unpleasant scents. All of these environmental factors create some form of discomfort, whether this be feelings of claustrophobia, irritation, anxiety or exacerbated feelings of sickness.
Not only can this affect a patient’s mood, but it can also affect their social interactions, behaviours and motivations which sets them on edge and can exacerbate any existing negative emotions.
In essence, we want to circumvent all negative emotions associated with difficult environmental conditions to make the visit to your practice a positive one.
What can I do about it?
We’re glad you asked.
If your patients are already on edge about visiting the doctors, you can negate this by changing their environment with a well-designed, functional fitout.
This includes features that have been proven to maintain or increase positive moods, including maximising natural light wherever possible, using warm colours within your waiting room to create a sense of softness and security, keeping an even temperature of around or below 22 °C and incorporating plants and other natural elements to boost feelings of wellness and positivity.
Through conscious design and a fit out that elicits positive reactions, you can create a positive experience for your patients that makes them feel comfortable and encouraged to return.
How can we help bring positivity into your practice?
As we now know, small changes can make a big impact to the comfort and satisfactions of your patients. From natural light to biophilic design, we can help create an environment that encourages the positive emotions that are essential to the success of your practice.
If you think your practice need a revamp to help boost patient satisfaction, get in touch to discuss your vision and get a quote from our team of fitout experts.
