By Jeff Wardon, Jr., Assistant Editor

Key Takeaways: 

• Retail-inspired healthcare design can make facilities easier to navigate while helping patients feel more comfortable and confident.  
• Clear signage, intuitive wayfinding and welcoming arrival areas can reduce stress before patients interact with clinicians or staff.  
• Bold graphics, numbering and universal icons can improve wayfinding and help healthcare facilities serve patients across language barriers. 

Healthcare facilities are increasingly looking beyond traditional clinical design for ways to improve the patient experience. John Quinn, wellness studio principal with architectural firm Little, spoke with Healthcare Facilities Today to discuss how retail-inspired principles such as intuitive wayfinding, clear signage, welcoming entrances, lighting and comfortable materials can help patients feel less stressed and more confident navigating healthcare spaces. 

HFT: What are the most important retail design principles that healthcare facilities are beginning to adopt, and why are they relevant to patient care? 

John Quinn: The biggest thing that retail design principles are about is the user experience — making it easy to navigate, find where you need to go and understand what your purpose is in that location. 

I think helping healthcare understand that and adopt it for patient care is important. People have always said hospitals and big clinics are tough to navigate and hard to find your way around. So, using wayfinding or more physical environmental markers to help you navigate the space and find your way through it, like a lot of department stores or larger environments do, is something that we've been using here at Little to navigate some larger clinics and things like that. 

It helps the patient who's afraid to come in or who's tentative at least feel a little more comfortable, know where they need to go and feel confident that they're going to get the care they need. 

Some of the other principles are around materials and lighting, and making sure they're aesthetically pleasing and comfortable, while still allowing providers and doctors to do the things they need to do in each exam room or waiting area. People need to be comfortable. If they're not feeling well, they shouldn't be sitting under a bright, blaring light or in some other uncomfortable environment. 

HFT Recommends: Healthcare Is the New Retail

So, it's really about attuning to the person and the user coming in and helping them feel comfortable. They're already stressed or worried about a health concern or the issue they're coming in for. So, as retail does, we try to make people feel comfortable and help them quickly use and feel comfortable in our facilities. 

HFT: How can a facility’s layout, signage and arrival experience reduce stress for patients before they interact with a clinician or staff member? 

Quinn: Yeah, kind of as mentioned, it's just making sure people feel comfortable with where they are and how they're coming into the space. Give them the option of either talking to someone directly, or, if the wayfinding and signage is intuitive, knowing they can immediately go to the department or area of the clinic they need. 

Even things like knowing how to check in or what their wait time will be — those kinds of things are important. And making sure that front entry, where they come in, you're greeted by someone. Even if you may not use them, just letting people know that you're here and that you're already being taken care of helps you feel comfortable and approached by someone. 

Kind of what high-end concierge retail does is give you someone to talk to right away before you even start shopping. So we're trying to get the healthcare industry to realize that, too, by making people comfortable, addressing them and getting them settled. 

That way, they'll feel more comfortable, be able to enjoy their experience there more and not be so upset or nervous as they begin their process or whatever they're there for. 

HFT: Can you share specific examples from your healthcare work where retail-informed design improved wayfinding, access or the overall patient experience? 

Quinn: So, unfortunately, they've kind of simplified the process, but one of our first clients where we really started using retail design elements in a healthcare clinic was Concentra. 

They've now kind of gone to a simpler model, but we used bold lettering and numbering rather than a small little “Exam 1” on the door. We had a big graphic that helped people get there. We also set up icons of things that would be internationally recognized across different languages. 

The icon became something that's more universal and can easily help people understand where the X-ray room is, where the physical therapy room is or where the exam room is. So even if there was a language barrier, they're able to see what they're looking for. 

Using different kinds of signage and wayfinding has helped bridge that gap with multiple languages and a lot of diverse populations using the same clinic. 

Jeff Wardon, Jr., is the assistant editor for the facilities market. With more than three years of experience, he covers topics including technology, wellness, sustainability and emerging industry trends. Connect with him on LinkedIn.