Healthcare Design - April 2015 - 40

R RESEARCH | 04.15
A common practice in outpatient clinics is to design
a division between onstage spaces where the patient
travels and offstage spaces where staff can work
without patients being present. The 53,000-squarefoot, two-story Group Health Puyallup Medical Center
in Puyallup, Wash., integrates laboratory, imaging,
pharmacy, and other outpatient services with family
medicine, pediatrics, and obstetrics. It uses three
clinical pods, with typically five to six doctors per
pod. The clinic achieves an onstage/offstage division
with separate corridors for patients and double-door
exam rooms with patients entering from one side
and staff from the other. The majority of patients
self-room. In this design, the team room is isolated
acoustically from the onstage areas, permitting

team is responsible for their care, not just an individual
doctor. Additionally, it gives patients and staff multiple
opportunities to interact beyond the exam room. This
accessibility and symbolism does come at the cost of
dampening verbal communication between clinical staff
about patients to protect confidentiality.
A wide range of physician compromises and spaces
were observed, from partially enclosed to fully open
spaces. For example, at the Emory clinic, there's a shared
doctors' office that's adjacent to the team room where
doctors can work while still being visible and accessible
to the rest of the team. At Group Health, the facility also
initially used separate but adjacent physician workspaces;
however, after operating for a period of time, most perceived the benefits of being in proximity and collaborating

greater openness of staff communication without
concerns of patients overhearing.
On the other end of the spectrum, the team room
at the Emory Healthcare Patient-Centered Primary
Care Clinic, a three-provider practice serving Emory
Healthcare employees, is completely accessible to
patients-in fact, patients enter the clinic via the team
room to access the exam rooms. This has the advantage of making the patients highly aware that an entire

with colleagues and began working in the team room
space.
A key strategy for success of a shared team room was
creating a positive draw for all-a place that's not only
attractive but also is a point of intersection and activity. Other observations noted that the configuration and
arrangement of the team room affected communication
and collaboration. For example, two different outpatient clinic spaces operating out of the Cherokee Indian

Supreme Saver.

Milnor's ingenious MilTouchTM controller has
pre-programmed formulas built right in to save you
time. You can modify formulas or create and save
your own. Our extra-large cylinder perforations and
high ﬁnal extraction speeds mean linens end the cycle
retaining less moisture, speeding up dryer times to
save energy. Save water with Milnor's RinSave®
Water Saver technology. The V8Z can even ﬁt through
a standard 3'- 0" door, which simpliﬁes installation and
saves space. That's even more savings. Super!
Contact an authorized Milnor distributor
or call 800-469-8780 to find out more.

Milnor's 60 lb. capacity 30022 V8Z provides
three ways to save: time, energy and water.

www.milnor.com/miltouch

/pellerinmilnor

HCDmagazine.com 04.15

http://www.milnor.com/miltouch http://www.HCDmagazine.com

Healthcare Design - April 2015

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Healthcare Design - April 2015