Herman Miller healthcare, helping you make waiting areas purposeful

By ahhb
Tuesday, 15 September, 2015

Herman Miller healthcare has a range of waiting room options from standard lounge seating to bariatric seating, with integrated power, tables and magazine holders to suit a wide range of facilities and aesthetics from acute care to physician suites. Built for the rigorous demands of healthcare environments, covered in appropriate materials and based on research into human needs, Herman Miller Healthcare products stand up to 24 hour use in healthcare environments.

The Toyota Production System has classified waiting as waste—and that’s something any healthy organisation strives to eradicate. According to Roger Call, Director of Healthcare Kaizen Architecture at Herman Miller Healthcare, “The goal of a lean continuous improvement approach is to reduce and eliminate waste, while recognising that it may be very difficult to eliminate all of it.” For example, a patient’s family members or driver may still have downtime during the appointment or procedure.
Unscheduled emergencies and other situations can also extend waiting times. Whenever patients are forced to wait, that experience influences their perception of quality of care. As public zones where people with illnesses gather, waiting rooms are sometimes seen as places where germs abound. This impression can create a sense of discomfort and urgency to leave the space as soon as possible— making it more difficult to tolerate service delays, errors, and inefficiencies—and lowering patient expectations.
Not surprisingly, research has shown that as wait time goes up, patient satisfaction goes down. Those who waited five minutes or less expressed 95.4 percent satisfaction with their experience, and satisfaction dropped steadily along with wait time, all the way down to just 80.4 percent satisfaction for those who waited more than 30 minutes. One study even suggested that perceived wait time is a more compelling indicator of patient satisfaction than actual wait time. A wait that “feels” long due to crowded, noisy surroundings or a lack of positive distractions like art, aquariums, movement options or windows can lower satisfaction scores even more. This suggests that focusing on the emotion-related component of waiting may be an important part of improving the patient experience.
Transforming waiting spaces into social healing areas makes waiting purposeful. Purposeful waiting time respects the time of your customers, allowing them the opportunity to power their personal devices, research health topics, gather with family or continue with their work. Offering postural variation and movement has been shown to decrease anxiety, perception of waiting time and violence against staff in emergency departments. Choices for comfortably sitting alone or for a patient and family to gather including different height solutions, dining options and child friendly spaces enhance the experience of waiting. Options for bariatric patients while in the same family of product line accommodates a greater range of patients while maintaining a consistent aesthetic.
Creating natural divisions can help make patients feel more relaxed and less selfconscious. In Herman Miller’s pharmacy waiting area study, a pair of seats that was isolated from the main area of the waiting room was among the most popular places to sit. Already under stress or experiencing symptoms, some patients may not want to sit next to strangers who could be ill or overhear conversations.
The physical attractiveness of waiting spaces can also impact of the perception of quality of care. Simple environmental changes such as adjusting room temperature to patient mix, providing glare-free lighting, playing soft music, and choosing energetic warm colours or calming cool colours can make a difference to the patient experience.
The healthcare industry’s understanding of waiting continues to expand all the time. By considering the changing demographics, behaviours, activities, and expectations of waiting spaces, Herman Miller Healthcare is dedicated to improving the waiting experience.