As a leading specialist in dental clinic design, we often surprise clients by recommending that we look to an unexpected place for interior design inspiration: their clients’ favourite luxury hotel.
The reason? It’s simple: creating a dental practice where patients feel relaxed, reassured and in good hands can create returning patients and make for a more efficient, healthier workplace for colleagues.
That’s why we’re launching a blog series exploring luxury dental surgery design and explaining how it can be used.
Plus, we’ll explain details of Global Dental’s innovative new Practice Workflow Consulting service with an initial, no charge review offer.
Our aim: helping practice owners to create reassuring spaces where patients can feel relaxed and dentists can do their best work.
Design-Based Patient Experience in Dental Clinics: An Introduction
Every dentist knows that a nervous patient might avoid booking a visit to the surgery, perhaps waiting until things reach an emergency stage, and may well require extra time and support when they do make an appointment.
In fact, a patient may even have a greater perception of pain as well as remembering a visit as being more painful than actually was the case.
Therefore, creating a familiar environment designed to remind the patient of positive settings – like a high-end hotel – can be a great first step in breaking this cycle.
This can be achieved through:
- Soft and natural light
- Soothing décor and images
- Non-medical furniture
- Calming, non-medical colour scheme
- Dental tools stored away until needed
Meanwhile the use of music could be even more important at this stage as the relaxing and distracting effect is believed to “reduce the activity of the neuroendocrine and sympathetic nervous systems”.
For example, the overall aesthetic at 3 Step Smiles, a Global Dental client in Glasgow, uses a luxurious and modern floor finish with contemporary colours and furniture and blue feature lighting. The overall ‘feel’ is closer to the experience of a beautician salon in a five-star hotel than it is to traditional ideas of how a dental surgery should look.
Combining Luxury Design and Workflow Design for Improved Dental Practice Results
A more relaxing environment for patients can be matched with a review of practice layout, processes, equipment and technology to make sure of the best possible results at a time when it matters more than ever.
An extensive workflow assessment of a practice is highly recommended as it can drive benefits in areas including:
- Practice physical environment: Could design or layout changes improve patient experience
- On-site processes for patient flow: Including examination of how patients book-in and move around a practice.
- Equipment choice, servicing and maintenance: Reporting on performance vs cost of equipment plus assessment of maintenance and repair cost options (eg annual service plans vs ad hoc)
And more.
Global Dental offers an initial workflow consultation for UK dentists within our coverage area – please ask for more details - at no charge.
To find out more about how hospitality thinking in practice design OR our workflow assessment service simply contact us with any questions. We’re here to help.
See also: Inspirational dental practice designs, dental chair reupholstering
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