Tips to Help Find the Right Space for your Dental Practice
The ideal practice has likely been a dream that you have slowly constructed over your years practicing as a Dentist. What this space looks like, how it functions and most importantly – how it feels. This knowledge will fuel the instinctive decisions you make in not only choosing the right spot for your practice but the right space. There are many elements that will affect this decision, from the type of patients that live in your chosen area and local competition, to choosing a building or site that will allow you to create an exemplary patient experience. OPTIMA is here to guide you through how this is all achieved through holistic thinking, and the interior and exterior design of your dream practice.
Demographics, Density, Competition and Patient Experience
Multiple factors influence what constitutes a smart investment area. What’s the ratio of dentists to residents in the area? What is the average disposable income? What is the annual dental spend? This information not only drives where you should consider your practice but also provides great insight into the type of patients you will have, in turn, influencing the type of patient experience you craft. Is it an area with a higher percentage of young families? Creating a dedicated children area within your practice will not only set you apart from the competition and meet your patient’s needs, but will also drive patient referrals. Patient experience defines what you are trying to achieve as a Dentist. Are you creating a space that achieves the experience of peace of mind?
The key to the success and longevity of your practice, indeed any business, is a truly empathic understanding of what it feels like to be a patient at your practice. The process often starts with discovering insights about what actually matters to the patients, and it is important to note that this concept is highly focused on transforming the insights into design outcomes that help users in having enriching experiences (Penner, Adams and Stephanin 2013)
The Ideal Building
In many ways choosing an ideal building is much the same as choosing an ideal home, the right building will resonate with you. Even with what we believe are logical decisions, the very point of choice is arguably always based on emotion.” You will likely spend more time here than in your own home, so the emotional attachment created with this building should not be underestimated. Winston Churchill once mused, ‘We shape our buildings and afterwards our buildings shape us! Buildings, interiors, designs, and space create emotive responses and as such working with a team that understands the importance of the intersection of your vision, the building and who you are as a practitioner is vitally important to creating a practice that is a sum of its parts.
Create Your Space
Who you are as a practitioner will directly and indirectly affect the environment around you, ‘This brings us to the idea that the interior has always been indistinguishable from people’s inner life – let us call it their interiority. The space you chose and it’s construction is a symbolic representation of you, your practice philosophy, and the care you extend to your patients. There are hundreds of parameters that can shape this representation, the building you chose provides the structure and the patients that live within your chosen area provide the parameters. The interplay of space, line, form and light intersecting with wayfinding, treatment zones and waiting rooms will guide your unique depiction. Exterior and interior design is a language, having a dedicated team to translate your vision is OPTIMA’s passion. Offering an end-to-end solution creates a practice that becomes much more than furniture or bricks and mortar.
