Building's design can give your practice greater visibility

When Carolina Neurosurgery and Spine Associates, an 18-physician group based in Charlotte, N.C., started to outgrow its facility, it was a reason to make a dramatic change.

The group decided against expanding. It didn't even settle for purchasing a larger facility. It bought a building, wrecked it, and built anew with style and flair.

The new building, a combination of stone and glass, served a twofold purpose for the practice. It gave the physicians and staff much-needed space, but it also gave them additional visibility, something the previous location sorely lacked.

"We didn't want the building to look ostentatious, but we wanted it to be recognizable," said E. Hunter Dyer, MD, a neurosurgeon and president of the group.

"We have patients come from a 100-mile radius, so one of the better things is it's much easier to find."

In a competitive environment, some physicians are looking to their physical buildings as a way to distinguish themselves from other doctors in their market. Unique design and innovative use of space are becoming popular mantras for groups looking to make an impact on patients.

Just as physicians want to be known as providing high-quality care and service to their patients, some also don't want their places of business to be seen as drab, boring medical office buildings. While the cost of such work can be pricey, those who have done it say it's worth doing as a long-term investment.

Physicians are following the lead of hospitals, which have been designing their facilities to fit descriptive phrases like "patient-centric" and "healing environment" for decades.

"I think with design quality, to the extent that physicians are competing more for patients, environment is important," said architect Craig Beale, executive vice president and director of the health care group for HKS Inc., a Dallas-based design firm. "Most people associate higher-caliber services with a nicer environment."

Pitched roofs and waiting room fireplaces are replacing sterile tile and standardized office sizes, as groups look to building design to help draw patients in, said architect Don Smith, director of health care architecture for the Zimmerman Design Group in Milwaukee.

"I think patients recognize that," Smith said. "They recognize your building as one that has more class than the other guys' [facility]."

While groups may need to have a large number of physicians to financially justify buying or building a new office, the trend is certainly not limited to any particular specialty, Beale said.

Pediatricians and ob-gyns, for example, often place a large emphasis on design as a way to calm children and influence women, who usually serve as decision-makers for their families.

Beale said ancillary services often drive the decision to create an office with a fresh design, because those are services that rely on some marketing support to generate business.

O. Allen Guinn III, MD, a plastic and hand surgeon in Lee's Summit, Mo., found a healing environment and suitable location for ancillary services in an unlikely source: a former restaurant. The building, which is a farm house nearly 140 years old, sits high up on a hill among more than four wooded acres. It has a Victorian style that Dr. Guinn and his wife and office manager, Kathy, tried to accentuate by adding antique furnishings.

The practice, Aurora Plastic and Hand Surgery, offers cosmetic services as well as hand surgery and a medical spa. It caters to high-end, cash-paying patients as well as blue-collar laborers with workers' compensation-related cases, so being in a unique office environment provides a landmark that everyone can find.

"It really doesn't look or feel like a doctor's office," Dr. Guinn said. "You can't believe the feeling when you drive up and this is your office."

However, simply telling people to go to the former restaurant, named Tuscany Manor, doesn't always work. So staff members also tell patients to look for another distinguishing characteristic: a windmill on the property.

"If people don't know exactly where we're located, we say to them, 'You know the windmill? Follow the windmill,' " Kathy Guinn said.

For Carolina Neurosurgery and Spine Associates, visibility is now an aid to greater success. Because of the way the group's former office was built and situated, people driving on the main thoroughfare could see only its roof, Dr. Dyer said. The new building is on the front of the lot, and patients can recognize it more easily.

"There are some groups that just decide they're going to go the least expensive route in terms of overhead, but that's just not what we wanted to do," Dr. Dyer said. "We certainly look at it as a real estate investment for the long term."