Modern Clinic Design: Strategies for an Era of Change

If you design healthcare spaces you will want “Modern Clinic Design” on your bookshelf. This 336 page hardback from Wiley is an essential and practical guide.Ambulatory care is one of the most rapidly growing parts of healthcare. This book is a comprehensive review of contemporary design practices. Given the rapidly changing nature of healthcare delivery the book wisely looks into the future and emphasizes the need for flexibility.This book covers all aspects of clinic design including emerging topics such as clinics in retail settings. The book explains the strengths and weaknesses of lean design as it reminds us that that cost control is a key issue. Real-world examples from all over the US are used extensively to illustrate the ideas discussed in the text.In addition to traditional design topics there is a helpful overview of legislation, government regulations and technological developments that should help designers better understand the unique needs of their clients. Thankfully these complex topics are covered concisely using easy-to-understand language.I only have a couple of minor complaints. Artwork is hardly mentioned at all except for a brief entry on page 40. The other minor issue is that the projects are drawn from the US, especially the Midwest. Ideally there would be examples of clinic design from around the world. However the ideas covered in the book would apply to projects anywhere.This 336-page book is printed on high quality paper and is filled with hundreds of illustrations and photographs in full color.The writing is authoritative and clear. It was written by 3 leading healthcare Designers from HGA: Interior Designer Christine Guzzo Vickery and architects Gary Nyberg and Douglas Whiteaker.Highly recommended for interior designers, architects and hospital staff involved with healthcare design.Review by Henry Domke

As someone that is new to the world of clinic design, I appreciated the straight forward examples and illustrative photos. This is a great book for anyone interested in understanding the current approaches to clinic design with an eye toward the future.

I picked up this book for my daughter-in-law who is currently taking courses in interior design. I knew she would find it interesting but I didn’t expect to find myself flipping through the book myself, discovering some insightful photographs of different healthcare facilities that made me better appreciate the care that goes into designing physical space for people—from patients to physicians. As I continued flipping I noticed sections in the chapters devoted to specific issues that I honestly never considered a significant aspect in treatment and, yet, once I saw them they seemed so obvious. Creating an efficient yet welcoming space is an art form I don’t know that I fully appreciated. Sure, I can see elements of Bauhaus or even Asian influences but to see specific influences either from the local environment or past architects surprised me. If I, a novice to the idea of interior design, can find this book so engaging, I can only imagine what my daughter-in-law will think. I’ll be sure to update this review when she’s told me what she thinks.

What first struck me about this book is that it could almost be a coffee table book, with its many photos, diagrams, layouts, and well spaced/headed text. For an Engineer like myself - and probably plenty of architects and even interior designers - this is easy to pick up and become engrossed in, even if you just want to pick a random spot to start reading.Soon after, I realized just what a wealth of information is in here. I've dealt with some military hospitals from a communications perspective, and from that, I already knew just how fickle dealing with clinics can be: everything is different than you would expect from other places. While this book doesn't go into design of utilities, communications, or other physical facilities, it is strong and in-depth on its subject matter, which is more the functional design and aesthetic appeal to ease the patient as she is quickly processed through as efficiently as possible.It actually makes you realize just how purposefully one-size-fits-all and faceless healthcare is becoming. This reminds me of what I think about all other businesses, how they have everything thought out how to squeeze every last drop of blood (cent) out of the "average" customer, which - at least I like to think - often doesn't apply to me. If that involves pretending to care by putting the patient in decent surrounds, then so be it. This is no fault of the book, obviously.Clearly, the book is a professional, thorough analysis that will appeal to anyone associated with the industry, and could easily be required reading for architectural students.

This textbook is set up as an accompaniment to an architectural seminar in healthcare clinic design. The book has dozens of examples of existing clinics, their layouts, and provides the historic background and an introduction to the business models applicable within the healthcare setting. The text focuses on primary care settings and does not introduce much in the way of specifics that would apply to other specialties: ophthalmology, psychiatry, radiology clinics, for example, would have very different requirements all of which would enter into the facility design. The text also focuses on fairly large projects, atypical for private practice or small physician group practice. While targeting the architectural and design audience, the text provides value for the healthcare executive considering various approaches to development and design of a new facility.