Transforming the Doctor's Office ― Principles from Evidence-based Design

From the parking lot to the exam room, doctors can improve the physical surroundings for their patients, yet often they do not. Given the numerous and varied duties doctors must perform, it may fall to the design profession to implement changes, many based on research, to improve healthcare experiences. From location and layout to furnishings and positive distractions, this book provides evidence-based information about the physical environment to help doctors and those who design medical work spaces improve the experience of health care. In addition to its research base, a special aspect of this book is the integration of relevant historical material about the office practice of physicians at the beginning of the 20^th century. Many of their design solutions are viable today. In addition to improving the physical design of healthcare facilities, I have a personal reason for writing this book. Both of my grandfathers were physicians, as were my father and his brother. My mother and her mother were nurses. I worked in a hospital during college, and I have lived long enough to visit a good many practitioners' offices in medical office buildings and ambulatory care settings. This book addresses an overlooked location of care: the doctor's office suite.

Ann Sloan Devlin is the May Buckley Sadowski ’19 Professor of Psychology at Connecticut College, New London, USA. She has published extensively on healthcare environments, investigating how perceptions of the built environment influence judgments of care and comfort. She has written three other books, most recently What Americans Build and Why: Psychological Perspectives (2010).