Breaking down walls: the new healthcare workspace transformation

As the practice of medicine evolves, so are the healthcare facilities where physicians and other professionals deliver care to patients. Organizations are grappling with cost pressures and space is at a premium in all healthcare settings from ambulatory care facilities to large hospitals. Facilities leaders must explore new approaches to designing healthcare workspaces that enable teams to use space more efficiently and better meet the needs of all healthcare staff members.

“Pandemic-accelerated digital transformation and surging patient demand are pressuring an already constrained physician space market,” explains JLL's Susan Chang, SVP, Workplace Design Advisory. “Physician spaces need optimization more than ever.”

Chang emphasizes three key innovations to help healthcare organizations confront these challenges: healthcare ecosystem mapping, strategic space allocation and right-sizing physician spaces.

Following departmental hierarchy or historical precedent is often not the most efficient way to allocate workspaces in a healthcare setting. With many organizations experiencing space shortages in some areas and underutilization in others, facilities leaders are reimaging their operational infrastructure by adopting a more strategic approach to space allocation.

Rather than establishing department-based territories, forward-looking leaders are focusing on activities and outcomes. Prioritizing how spaces function instead of who “owns” the space can significantly boost efficiency and improve experiences for the whole team.

Technology plays an important role in strategic space allocation. Legacy desktops and phone landlines “anchor” physicians to fixed locations. Softphones, laptops and other mobile digital devices can enable more flexible, efficient workspaces.

Chang and her team deployed this approach successfully at a building within a health system in Eastern Canada. “We developed an approach for all healthcare staff to share one floor of the building, which houses all of the different types of spaces that any of them might need at any given time,” she says. “For example, there is a shared bank of private offices, but nobody owns any of them. They’re available to everyone to use as needed.”

The design also features a variety of meeting rooms for one-on-one, virtual or group meetings, with special focus on acoustics to maintain confidentiality. Open areas offer physicians and team members a place to work on tasks like responding to emails, whether they’re actively collaborating or not.

“Sometimes people just want to be around their colleagues, even if they’re not working together directly,” says Chang. “When they don’t need acoustic privacy, they can be out in the open.”

Making room for more flexible, innovative and efficient workspace design often means rethinking traditional spaces—particularly physician offices.