Healthcare facilities are essential to our lives. Without them, it would be hard to achieve well-being. Medical facilities like hospitals need to constantly develop and improve their services. Since they’re a place where people seek constant treatment and care, they need to deliver quality service.
One way of improving their service is by developing hospital expansion plans. Expansions are necessary for them to accommodate more people and to meet their demands. Hospital expansion plans can also help lessen the burden and workload of medical professionals.
Do you wonder how hospitals still manage to operate despite having expansions? The answer is: through the use of temporary healthcare buildings. During the pandemic, hospitals used temporary healthcare buildings to isolate patients with COVID. Also, it helped them to continuously accommodate non-COVID patients despite the surge.
Despite being a temporary facility, temporary healthcare buildings are of good quality. They function exactly like a regular health facility. And so, they’re also expected to deliver quality service. In this article, let’s discuss five ways to deliver quality service in temporary healthcare facilities.
1. Design the interior of the temporary building similar to the hospital’s
Most of the temporary buildings used by hospitals are pre-fabricated. People assemble pre-fabricated buildings on-site; similar to modular construction. Pre-fabricated buildings are also known to be the modern methods of construction that are now being utilised.
The great thing about temporary healthcare buildings is that you can design their interiors. You’re not limited to sticking to a ‘temporary’ feel. Instead, you can turn it into a space that is similar to your healthcare facility.
Making a temporary building homier will help patients feel more comfortable and relaxed. Moreover, it will be easier for medical workers to adjust as well. If you’re planning to expand your healthcare facility, I suggest designing your temporary building similar to your regular layout.
2. Display notices about your expansion plans and regulations on your temporary healthcare building
When you open and operate your business in a temporary healthcare building, everyone who goes in and out of the hospital must be aware of the changes. Of course, you don’t need to share details that only management should know. But, you should let your patients and guests know that in the meantime, operations will continue in a temporary healthcare building due to expansion plans.
Let’s say, for example, a healthcare building is undergoing an expansion project. A patient who regularly visits a clinic in the building goes to have her monthly check-up. But then, she notices that the building is closed and is under construction. If there’s no notice about the plan, the patient will be lost. Moreover, she’s unaware of where the clinic has been relocated.
That’s why it’s important to let people know if you’re doing an expansion. Most importantly, update them about temporary clinic relocations. It shows that you respect your patients’ and guests’ time by saving them the stress and confusion of looking for their clinics.
3. Operate as if you’re in your regular healthcare facility and not in a temporary building.
Aside from designing the interior of the temporary building like your regular facility, it’s also important to apply your usual operation methods. It’s important to remember that you’ve just moved locations. But, that doesn’t mean your healthcare system’s operation methods have changed, either.
This is imperative to follow so that your facility can continuously deliver quality service. That’s why, before you start your operation or relocate to a temporary building, train and advise your medical workers to follow the regular procedures.
Also, the patients and guests can tell if the medical workers are having a hard time adjusting. It’s easy to spot subtle tension and minor chaos that workers are experiencing. That’s why it’s a must to follow regular operation procedures to avoid any of that from happening.
4. Provide proper air ventilation systems for a comfortable facility visit and stay
Usually, businesses that are staying in a temporary building often fail to provide proper air ventilation. The result is that guests feel uncomfortable and suffocated in the facility. This often happens when health facilities have no choice but to operate immediately to accommodate their patients.
If a health facility chooses to operate despite not having a proper ventilation system, they’re putting a lot of patients at risk and in an uncomfortable situation. Also, it can affect the mood of everyone in the building as well.
If medical workers are having a hard time and are uncomfortable, it can be hard for them to provide quality service. As a result, clients can feel irritated and unsatisfied with the service that they’ll be experiencing. To avoid any of those from happening, it’s best to have a running air ventilation system in the temporary building.
5. Make food, drinks, and sanitisers widely available within the premises
Last but not least is to make food, drinks, and sanitisers widely available within the premises. If you’ve recently moved to a temporary building due to expansion plans, it’s best to put food stalls within the building.
As you know, a lot of people come in and out of health facilities at any time of the day. Some have to wait for hours for their turn. Others have a quick drop-by during their lunchtime to get their results. People make time to visit a health facility despite their tight schedules.
With that, don’t forget to make food and drinks available in your temporary building. It would be nice if people could grab something to fill their stomachs. Also, always promote cleanliness by having sanitisers in the building. I suggest placing sanitisers in doorways, elevators, and stairs.
These five simple points can make your patients’ experience comfortable and worthwhile.
The five points I discussed above are just some of the easy steps that you can take to deliver quality service. Remember, the purpose of a health facility is to provide care and treatments. That’s why it’s important to make the temporary health facility a comfortable place as much as possible. Once you apply these points and start your operation, you can then add more ways to personalise and make your service better.
Bianca Banda is a writer for Flex by MTX, a privately owned construction and engineering company that relentlessly champions the use of Modern Methods of Construction for social, economic, and environmental good.
