Psychologically informed room design to enhance the patient experience in Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation (PM&R).

Research Objectives: To investigate the influence of alterations to an outpatient PM&R workspace on the patient experience.

Design: A small sample of patients who had received a PM&R visit participated in a 40-minute focus group meeting. A 3-year retrospective chart review identified the patient perspective after a consultation in the room.

Setting: This study was conducted in an outpatient cardiac rehabilitation setting.

Participants: A convenient self-selected sample of 3 patients participated in the focus group and 327 (50.3% female) patients met the criteria for the chart review.

Interventions: Psychologically informed decisions based on expert opinion were used to design an examination room, with consideration of the lighting, floor quality, color, size and markings, furniture/desk design, and clinical applications of technology, including (1) touchscreen display monitors to interact with patients (2) a remote control video camera with the capacity to send images to the EMR (3) Movement Sensor Technology that quantifies objective performance metrics and (4) a Connected Health mobile device application that enables the clinician to monitor and prescribe treatment plans to the patient at home. The consultations were conducted by an exercise physiologist with training in motivational interviewing.

Main Outcome Measures: A focus group moderator gathered feedback about the room and evaluated responses to a 4-minute role-playing video demonstration that integrated the technologies into a patient-centered consultation with a standardized patient. The 10-item CARE Measure used a 1-5 Likert scale to anonymously assess clinician-patient relational empathy.

Results: An analysis of the focus group transcription identified that all participants preferred the remodeled room compared with a traditional examination room. There was a consensus that the room was wellness oriented. Participants unanimously agreed that the technology facilitated useful feedback to patients and strengthened the clinician-patient relationship. CARE Measures scores identified overall mean of 49.06 (SD=0.3) out of a maximum of 50.

Conclusions: It appears that a psychologically informed room design has the potential to enhance the patient experience and improve the quality of care.

Author(s) Disclosures: None