The clinic host and guide welcome patients at eye level, checking them in and ensuring their entire visit is seamless. The Patient Lounge, designed to be more of a lounge than a waiting room, features Wi-Fi and charging stations, refreshments and calming elements, such as dimmed lighting, soothing music and comfortable furniture. Image courtesy of Mayfair Diagnostics.
September 2, 2016 — Mayfair Diagnostics, a medical imaging clinic in Calgary, Alberta, is revealing its newest medical imaging clinic in Coventry Hills, which is being described as the clinic of the future because of the way it was designed.
"We wanted to find out what truly matters to our patients," said Jackie McAtee, vice president of brand and customer experience at Mayfair. "We are often part of our patients' lives at times of uncertainty, where feelings of fear and anxiety are not uncommon. We wanted to replace those emotions with feelings of clarity and control."
To achieve this, Mayfair Diagnostics partnered with one of the world's leading customer experience agencies, C Space, to design the clinic using principles of co-creation. Simply put, co-creation is all about collaborating and joint problem-solving with key stakeholders. It is regularly used by the retail and hospitality industries, and Mayfair Diagnostics wanted to bring that customer-focused approach to patient care — adding empathy to an ordinarily technical medical experience. The co-creation process involved intensive research using surveys, workshops and interviews with key stakeholders, including patients, employees, healthcare professionals and hospitality experts.
The result is a medical imaging clinic that combines a re-imagined patient experience, state-of-the-art technology and world-class medical expertise.
"Rather than attempting to create an imaging clinic that provides outstanding patient experiences, we flipped the objective to turn an outstanding patient experience into an imaging clinic," said David Franke, innovation director of C Space.
Everything, from the clinic's physical space to patient-employee interactions, was designed with the patient in mind. For instance, the clinic features a clinic host and clinic guide, who work together to ensure a patient's entire experience within the clinic is seamless. All clinic employees have received as much customer experience training as they have technical training. The patient lounge offers Wi-Fi and charging stations, refreshments, soft lighting and comfortable furniture. The Knowledge Bar is a private space where patients can meet with radiologists and technologists to provide clarity about their results, options and next steps.
The clinic houses several ultrasound rooms, one mammography room, one bone densitometry room and one X-ray room. Patients also have access to tomosynthesis — a 3-D breast scan that allows for greater accuracy in the detection of suspected tumors and masses, which means fewer callbacks and less anxiety for the patient.
Mayfair Diagnostics will apply the 'co-creation' approach to all of its other clinics over time.
For more information: www.radiology.ca