Some practices find extra efficiency with pod design

Practice Management. By Mike Norbut, AMNews staff. Feb. 28, 2005.

The family practice office of Keystone Health Center, a public, nonprofit health care network in Chambersburg, Pa., has 24 exam rooms, but David Hoffmann, DO, uses only six of them.

Instead of crisscrossing the office between patient appointments, he needs to walk just a few feet between exam rooms in his pod. And instead of having to hunt down a nurse who's free to assist a patient, he knows he can count on the ones who are always assigned to him.

With eight physicians, it's a large office, but the pod concept of office design has made it considerably more manageable -- and efficient -- for Dr. Hoffmann and his patients.

"It promotes familiarity," said Dr. Hoffmann, a family physician and director of the HIV program at Keystone Health Center. "Within the pod, you can have specialization. It promotes a team environment."

To minimize unnecessary travel between patient appointments and the lost time spent tracking down information or samples during a visit, some physicians have adopted the pod concept of office design. It's as much an intellectual idea as it is a physical design, and it can help solve everything from patient flow problems to revenue shortfalls.

While it may appear to be an idea for larger groups planning to renovate its space or build a new office, many of the concepts apply to small groups as well. Advocates of the system say you can gain some of the same efficiencies in your practice by changing your organizational structure and allocating staff more in a pod style, where workers are not straying far from their work areas and exam rooms are scheduled consistently.