At NeoCon 2016, June 13-15, Herman Miller Healthcare and Nemschoff express their belief in the importance of individualizing the experience of care with a presentation designed to demonstrate how places of care can be personalized to meet the needs of different organizations, teams, and individuals. The showroom presents unique solutions based on extensive research in health and wellness settings through thoughtful layout and design, adaptive and comprehensive product solutions, and expressive colors and materials.
Visitors to the Herman Miller Healthcare and Nemschoff showroom will be greeted in an open area that has a welcoming, residential feel, quite unlike traditional hospital atriums or reception areas. Research shows that reception spaces can help make the patient feel welcome, as well as set the tone about the kind of care they expect to receive. When designing welcome areas, healthcare professionals and their design partners have to consider the population they are serving to create a sense of comfort, provide for different groups and postures, and support the many activities of users. When patients and caregivers are calm, comfortable, and secure, they are in a better state of mind to receive or assist their loved ones in receiving care. To alleviate stress and cognitive dissonance, welcome spaces should provide natural divisions between users, sight lines towards check-in, fewer rows, and consider sensory qualities in terms of colors, materials, and finishes.
An identifiable trend in institutional furnishings is a shift toward the warmth, comfort, and character typical of residential furniture, and this shift is reflected in the Herman Miller Healthcare and Nemschoff showroom. As architects, designers, and facilities professionals are looking for less clinical aesthetics in healthcare facilities, Nemschoff has outfitted the welcome area with Sophora and Aspen seating, along with other new introductions from the Nemschoff Classics collection, which reference the company’s residential past while also attending to the unique requirements of modern healthcare spaces. Other enhancements to the welcome area include technology-enabled solutions, such as powered seating and self-registration, to empower people with differing levels of ability.
Exam rooms are another area in which healthcare spaces are changing significantly. Research shows that the purpose and use of primary care exams rooms have shifted towards consultation. As appointments have become more consultative, trust between the physician and patient becomes the critical factor for better diagnosis, patient adherence to their care plan, and clinical outcomes. The most effective exam and consultation rooms are highly functional, but also work to build trust and engage users in a collaborative dialogue.
As the showroom demonstrates, consultative exam rooms have specific design considerations, including having the patient and clinician facing each other, at a comfortable distance and positioned as equals. Consultation rooms support information sharing, providing space for both patient and clinician to take notes, and featuring furnishings and chairs that are easy to move and reconfigure for conversation. The Ava recliner from Nemschoff can be used in consultation rooms to respond to this shift toward a more welcoming, equitable approach to care, with support for both patient and caregiver.
Another significant shift in healthcare is the move toward telemedicine. According to the American Medical Association, 70% of primary care visits can be handled without a visit to the physician's office, yet while the practice of telemedicine is growing, the spaces where it is delivered are not always optimized for the most effective delivery of care. Shared consultation spaces for telemedicine interactions should be designed to improve the interaction and experience for the patient and provider. As seen in the Herman Miller Healthcare and Nemschoff showroom, a space can be designed to afford visual and acoustical privacy, outfitted with specific furnishings and tools to optimize the experience, without a large investment in dedicated space.
At NeoCon 2016, Herman Miller Healthcare and Nemschoff demonstrate how furnishings, materials, and tools can help clients and design professionals create personalized places of care that are as distinctive as the people who use them.
About Nemschoff
Nemschoff, a Herman Miller company, provides innovative furnishings for healthcare and other high-use environments. With equal emphasis on style and performance, Nemschoff solutions combine high-quality materials and construction, thoughtful features, and unparalleled comfort, into a unique form of design that has become the preferred choice for equipping healthcare environments. Founded in 1950, with headquarters in Sheboygan, Wisconsin, Nemschoff believes that people make a difference, things should be built to last, and design can improve the way we work, heal, and live.
About Herman Miller Healthcare
Herman Miller Healthcare brings together the comprehensive offerings of Herman Miller, Geiger, and Nemschoff to help healthcare organizations and their partners create environments for people to work well, get well, and live well. Driven by a deep commitment to research-based, problem-solving design, they collaborate with industry thought leaders and world class designers to inspire, develop, and manufacture innovative furnishings and equipment centered on the needs of the people who work throughout healthcare systems, and the people they serve. With 80 years of combined healthcare industry experience, and a team of clinical and workplace strategists, Herman Miller Healthcare offers a suite of solutions that improve the work and healing experience wherever care is delivered, supported, or administered.
About Herman Miller, Inc.
Herman Miller is a globally recognized provider of furnishings and related technologies and services. Headquartered in West Michigan, the global company has relied on innovative design for over 100 years to solve problems for people wherever they work, live, learn, and heal. Herman Miller’s designs are part of museum collections worldwide, and the company is a past recipient of the Smithsonian Institution's Cooper Hewitt National Design Award. Known and respected for its leadership in corporate social responsibility, Herman Miller has been included in the Dow Jones Sustainability World Index for the past 12 years, and has earned the Human Rights Campaign Foundation’s top rating in its Corporate Equality Index for the past nine years. In fiscal 2015, the company generated $2.14 billion in revenue and employed over 7,000 people worldwide. Herman Miller trades on the NASDAQ Global Select Market under the symbol MLHR.