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9 Waiting Room Ideas That Will Make Your Patients Happy
Waiting is never an enjoyable experience. Add the stress of doctors and diagnoses, and you’re looking at solid torture. As a medical facility, you want to reduce that association and make a stint in your waiting room as pleasant as possible.
While you’re never going to make your patients feel completely at ease in your waiting room, providing a nice, visually-interesting waiting room design can make the experience more comfortable. Here are just a few waiting room ideas to get you started:
1. Provide free WiFi, charging cables and outlets.
Let’s face it – the days of waiting room televisions are coming to a close. These days, everyone walks around with a television in their back pocket. Chances are, even if you do provide television, everyone’s just going to be staring at their phones anyway.
Offering free WiFi will allow patients and their families to get any necessary work done while also providing entertainment and distraction from long wait periods. To go the extra mile, you can also have plenty of charging cables and outlets available so that their phones don’t run out of battery.
2. Hang calming, natural art.
Did you know that viewing nature scenes has been scientifically proven to improve your mental wellbeing? Do away with abstract art or city scapes in your waiting room in favor of forests and shorelines. They’ll help your patients and their families feel calmer, and they’re also very pretty. Check out these famous landscapes for inspiration!
3. Decorate in calming tones.
Colors like blue, green and lavender are associated with a reduced state of activity, while colors like orange and yellow evoke heightened excitement and nervousness. While you may not be able to completely repaint your office, adding touches of calming, cool colors could help your patients and their families to relax. You can also consider brightening the space with a logo mat!
4. Offer water.
Your patients could spend hours at a time in your waiting room, so make sure to take care of their physical needs. We’re not suggesting you feed them, but providing your waiting room guests with a water dispenser is a nice gesture that will make everyone feel more comfortable in the long run.
5. Use as much natural light as possible.
Stay away from harsh, stress-inducing industrial lighting. If your windows are always closed, then open them! Sunlight may reduce stress and increase productivity.
If you don’t have any windows, then invest in a lighting design that feels and looks natural.
6. Invest in comfortable seating.
Your seating is probably one of the most important aspects of your waiting room. In some cases, your patients and their loved ones could be spending hours at a time in your waiting room chairs and on your waiting room couches.
If you don’t have the money to buy entirely new waiting room furniture, make sure to get all cushions and upholstery thoroughly cleaned and consider adding more elements like pillows that will make your seating more comfortable.
7. Arrange furniture into small clusters.
Receiving medical care is stressful for many families, and they want to be together and not necessarily right up next to a stranger. Often, many waiting room designers make the mistake of placing rows and lines of chairs in the waiting room space, but now designers are turning to more organic clustered seating.
Creating groups of seats gives families a space to gather and discuss treatment options without worrying that their neighbor in the seat nearby might overhear. It also gives them some much-needed personal space in such a difficult time.
8. Above all, think about your patients.
All waiting rooms shouldn’t look the same. If you’re running a pediatric practice, make sure to invest in a play area and books for kids to keep them from running around like crazy. For older patients, provide seating that’s easy to get in and out of. Think about every aspect of your waiting room – does it make sense for the patients that you’re caring for?
9. Keep it clean.
Nothing will shake a customer’s confidence in your medical facility more than a dirty waiting room. Your waiting room is the first thing that patients see and it’s often where they spend the majority of their time. All the cute waiting room ideas won’t make a difference if your space is dirty and dusty. So, it’s essential to keep your waiting room clean and tidy to avoid a long-lasting negative first impression.
Your waiting room is a reflection of the rest of your facility, so take pride in it. You might think it’s a relatively inessential part of your medical practice, and while that may be true in theory, your waiting room has a huge impact on how your medical practice is perceived. If your waiting room is disgusting, it doesn’t matter how sterile your instruments are – patients aren’t going to trust you. We hope this waiting room ideas can help you take your facility to the next level!
MEDtegrity is a reliable supplier.
We have everything you need to keep your waiting room clean, from floor mats to block dirt and dust to mops that will disinfect your floors. Contact us today to learn more about the environmental products and services that we can offer your medical facility!
