Designing an Office Space that Inspires and Nurtures Your Patients
In this Elevate Your Practice Summit session, Samantha Mabe talks with Meg MacPherson, co-founder of Articulate Design, about creating thoughtfully designed healthcare spaces that reflect brand identity and elevate patient experience. Meg explains how aligning physical spaces with a practice’s brand can enhance client comfort, build trust, and improve clinic profitability. She emphasizes the importance of maximizing functionality through strategic layouts, integrating technology for streamlined check-ins, and designing flexible spaces that cater to both staff and client needs. The discussion covers practical steps to take when planning a new office or updating an existing one, along with how Articulate Design helps clinic owners find the right layout and aesthetic for their brand.
Key Takeaways
Invest in design that reflects brand identity to create an authentic, inviting experience.
Plan for functionality: Optimize layouts to maximize income-generating square footage.
Think about the client journey: Ensure that space and digital touchpoints align with patient needs.
Integrate technology thoughtfully: Use virtual admin support, online booking, and digital check-in to reduce front desk demands.
Plan early for new spaces: Engage design help before signing a lease to avoid costly adjustments later.
Design with flexibility: Create multifunctional rooms for virtual sessions, meetings, or content creation.
Be authentic: Showcase your unique brand in physical space, avoiding generic décor for an inviting, personalized client experience.
Meet the Speaker: Meg MacPherson
Articulate Design + Consulting was founded in 2020 and was born out of a desire as clinicians to create health + wellness spaces that inspire wellbeing through design.
Meg MacPherson + Neena Folliott (co-founders) bonded over a shared dissatisfaction with uninspiring and antiquated health care spaces. Their compliment of experience as clinicians, business owners and designers paved the way for their niche design firm that has now designed wellness spaces around the world.
Transcript
Timestamps
[00:00:37] Introduction to Meg MacPherson
[00:02:26] Importance of design in healthcare spaces
[00:04:22] Aligning physical space with brand identity
[00:06:28] Maximizing functionality and profitability
[00:10:32] Impact of design on clinic profitability
[00:14:34] Designing to integrate technology
[00:17:56] Creating multifunctional spaces
[00:18:48] Starting design process for new locations
[00:23:11] Articulate Design’s consultation options
[00:25:04] Advice for creating unique, brand-reflective spaces
Full Transcript
[00:00:00] Samantha Mabe: You are listening to the next session of the Elevate Your Practice Summit. Make sure to listen along and then go to the Elevate Your practice.co website to follow up with the speakers and get access to the amazing resources they have shared. And don't forget, you can save 30% on your first three months of practice, better@practicebetter.io, and use the discount code LATS 30. I hope you enjoy this session.
Meet Meg MacPherson and Articulate Design + Co
[00:00:37] Samantha Mabe: In this session of the Elevate Your Practice Summit, I'm talking with Meg MacPherson about designing an office space that both inspires and nurtures your patients. Meg is part of Articulate Design and Consulting, which was founded in 2020 and was born out of a desire as clinicians to create health and wellness spaces that inspire well being through design. Meg, along with her co-founder Neena Folliot, bonded over a shared dissatisfaction with uninspiring and antiquated healthcare spaces. Their compliment of experience as clinicians, business owners, and designers paved the way for their niche design firm that has now designed wellness spaces around the world. You can connect with them on their website at articulatedesignco. com or on Instagram at articulatedesignco.
[00:01:20] Samantha Mabe: Hi Meg, thanks so much for joining me for the Elevate Your Practice Summit.
[00:01:24] Meg MacPherson: Yeah, it's a pleasure to be here.
[00:01:26] Samantha Mabe: Let's have you tell us a little bit more about what you and your partner do and how you got started doing this for private practices.
[00:01:36] Meg MacPherson: Yeah, so Nina and I, my partner, are both physiotherapists by training and we've worked in the industry now for 16 years and we have known each other that whole time professionally, and we both have a passion and quite a lot of personal experience in design. And this really was rooted in us getting together and lamenting about the sorry state of design in health care places and spaces and how it was just really overlooked.
[00:02:10] And when I opened my own practice in 2015, design was really at the forefront. I wanted to create a space that I was excited to work in and that was also, enjoyable for my clients to come and visit.
The Importance of Design in Healthcare Spaces
[00:02:26] Meg MacPherson: And lo and behold, what I found out is that when a space is really well designed, it does a lot of the work for you, right?
[00:02:35] So much of our profession in health care, allied health is about regulating people, making them feel better, calming their nervous system, and when you put people in the right environment, a lot of that work is already done. And so through my space and through what I was putting into the universe around design and wellness, we were approached to design a clinic and that was our first project in 2020. And we thought, this might be fun to do on the side to our regular physio therapy practices. And here we are four years later, and it's just grown beyond our wildest dreams. And it's really what I do pretty much full time at this point. We have a team. And I think it's been really satisfying to fill a niche that exists and to really make people understand that design shouldn't be an afterthought. It's not a frill. It's really an investment in your business, the way you show up, the way your brand shows up. And being clinicians ourselves, I think being able to speak the language to other clinicians and entrepreneurs has been really helpful.
[00:03:53] Samantha Mabe: I love that and I think we experience that for ourselves. If you go when anytime I go and get a massage, like you walk in and it's very calming and it's dark and like you just feel relaxed walking into their building and then into the room. But when you go to the chiropractor or you go to your physical therapist, it doesn't necessarily have that same, like just, Oh, okay, this is a safe space. This is relaxing. I'm ready to go.
Aligning Your Practice’s Physical Space with Your Brand Identity
[00:04:22] Samantha Mabe: And I think that's why it's so key to think about the design of the physical space, just as much as we think about the way we design our programs and the way we design our marketing and every other piece of business because they are in our physical space. And that's going to have an impact on the results that we can get for people.
[00:04:42] Meg MacPherson: Yeah, a hundred percent. It all goes hand in hand. We live in a visual experiential world, where social media is king and people are interacting with your brand usually long before they enter your physical space. And so you want your physical space to be an extension of that and really have a solid identity of, is the place people are showing up in articulation or a translation of the brand that I want to be known as?
[00:05:12] Samantha Mabe: Let's dive into that a little bit more and talk about the importance for a private practice in the healthcare space, that your physical space aligns with your brand, especially what you're putting out online, which is where most people are going to encounter you first, and also the types of patients that you're seeing.
[00:05:31] Meg MacPherson: At the root of all of that, and it's a big part of our intake process for design, is really understanding your brand identity. And by brand identity, I don't mean your logo and your logo colors. Doing a deep dive into what is your brand identity, who is your avatar as a client, who are the type of clinicians you seek to employ? It's really depth and breadth to the brand. And for some people, that's an evolution. They figure that out along the way. A lot of places just open the doors and they need to open the doors. But for others, it's a more thought out process before they begin their business and what then informs the design is that brand identity.
[00:06:15] So all of our projects look very different from one another, and that's very unique. Most design firms are really pushing their aesthetic. And what's different about us is it's brand forward always.
[00:06:28] Meg MacPherson: So we need to understand your brand, your demographic, the area in which you're working the functionality you need, and that is what then informs the design concept and down to all the nitty gritty design details.
[00:06:41] And so if people haven't already gone through that exercise, it's something we're recommending they do in parallel to the design or in its own form through our intake, we're asking a lot of those same questions to have clinic owners be thoughtful about what they're really wanting to create.
[00:06:59] Samantha Mabe: I do the same thing as a website designer trying to get past just what do you do and who do you work with? But what do you want it to feel like when somebody encounters you and what do you want them to say about you when they're talking about it with other people? And I think that's not necessarily something that practitioners think about, because they just want to serve people and they're not thinking about the overall experience, which is so important.
[00:07:26] And, you mentioned knowing your avatar because that is going to really vary what your brand looks like. It's very different for my son to go to occupational therapy. He's five. So it's going to be colorful and bright and they have blocks out in the lobby versus when I were to go to something and that is not at all the experience I want. I want something relaxing and calm and getting away from all the kids stuff.
[00:07:54] Meg MacPherson: Yeah, exactly. It's so true. And I think ultimately what we're getting at here is the currency you're trading in is authenticity. And people sniff it out a mile away because there's so much competition out there.
[00:08:10] And so when you're using stock photos and very generic language, it's very hard. You're doing yourself a disservice to really stand out there when there's a lot of noise. And so it's understanding what is truly different about what we do. How are we? Visually putting that out into the world, how are we doing it through our copy, through our words, through our social media, and then, in our case, the bricks and mortar, what is the space itself feel like? And when all those things are in alignment, it's just a ticket to success. It truly is. Because people feel it, they feel the authenticity and they will tell 10, 20, 30 friends to go.
[00:08:51] Samantha Mabe: I did a a survey recently of people online and they, like you mentioned, people don't want to see stock photos and they have their place, but people want to see what your actual office looks like. And I think a lot of people are afraid to put that on their website because it's not Pretty, and it's not well designed and it doesn't necessarily reflect the rest of their brand and so when you have a space that's built so thoughtfully, it's really easy to put those photos of you working in your space up on your website to really showcase all around this is one experience that we're creating for people.
[00:09:29] Meg MacPherson: Yeah, and that's where the investment comes in. The same way you'd invest in a website designer, the same way you'd invest in somebody doing your brand materials, the same way you'd invest in having the accountant investing in design, both from a layout and functionality as well as brand experience, is a crucial part of the success of your business. And it pays back exponentially for that reason. It gives you content. You have a place to be filming content. You have photos to be putting online of your space. It is an extension of the brand experience you've been creating digitally. The space flows and functions well in, in the way that you can maximize income generation. All of that goes into the bottom line.
[00:10:14] And that's really the point of view we come from. We're really trying to help clinic owners. It's not just about making a space look nice, it's really about articulating your brand, creating an experience, and making sure your space functions as well as it possibly can to maximize your income.
How Design Impacts Your Practice’s Profitability
[00:10:32] Samantha Mabe: How have you seen design impact the profitability of a practice?
[00:10:40] Meg MacPherson: I think in a lot of the ways just mentioned, so I'll 1st speak to the functionality. A lot of people will, get a space and they'll fit, whatever the saying is square brick in a round hole, okay, there's already walls here. I'll work with these walls. I'll minimize the build out I may need to do. And they work with what they have, but there's a lot of wasted space essentially, right? The flow, the function is not optimized. And so what is maybe a cheaper startup cost ends up costing you down the road and inefficiencies. Where we would come in and say, okay, what's the best way to utilize the square footage?
[00:11:19] Again, going back to your brand identity, who's your avatar? Do you have a younger population where they can digitally check in? Let's not do a massive reception desk. Let's create another treatment room. Let's maybe do a mixture of open treatment space and closed treatment space, depending again on your population. Let's figure out the most lean footprint so that you have room for growth and you're not outgrowing this space before your lease is done.
[00:11:47] A lot of the audit in the design goes into the layout for sure. And that's a pretty obvious return on investment when we can maximize the square footage and you're making the most amount of income per square footage that it makes sense to invest in the right design from the get go.
[00:12:03] And then in terms of the brand experience, for some that feels a little more elusive of the return, but I think we can all take a step back and think of ourselves personally and the places and spaces that we spend our time and money in other industries. And we can then pull it into health care wellness, right? So think of the restaurants that you visit. I will guarantee most of them, there is an experiential component that's not just about the food that you're eating. It's the lighting. It's the seating. It's the music. It's the smells. It's the vibe. And you're happy to spend your Friday night and a good chunk of your pay for that day on that experience.
[00:12:46] And we need to think about, our institutions in the same way. People have choice of where they're choosing to spend their health care dollars, so we need to create an experience where they're happy to come. They're excited to come. And we all know word of mouth is the best driver of a business and so if you get 1 person in there, who's had a great experience, they're going to tell everyone they know to come visit as well.
[00:13:13] Obviously you want to have a really great team and having skilled therapists is a big part of the equation. But when you have a skilled therapist in a setting that's not overly pleasing, that therapist has to work twice as hard to get you back in the door, right? If you create a space and a place that's so inviting and is such a pleasant experience, you're doing, like I said earlier, a lot of the work for that therapist. You're having a person come in, they're calm, they're ready, they're excited to be there and more likely to come back.
[00:13:48] Samantha Mabe: We have to remember that when somebody refers you, they talk about, yes, the outcome that they got, they talk about your personality and they were so friendly and it was so easy to work with this person, but they also talk about the space. I know that a lot of us as parents are in those Facebook mom groups, and anytime you see a recommendation for a place or a person to go work with, they will say, Oh, they're really talented. I've worked with them for a long time. And the space is beautiful. And so that is a consideration that people make when giving a referral. And it's something that we think about even unconsciously when we're choosing, okay, which person do I actually want to look up and reach out to?
[00:14:31] Meg MacPherson: Totally. Yeah, exactly.
Planning and Designing a Space that Integrates Technology
[00:14:34] Samantha Mabe: We talked a little bit about flow and making sure that things are efficient in the layout and the design, but how do you also design a space that integrates technology, which is becoming more and more important for all of us?
[00:14:47] Meg MacPherson: Yeah, this is probably the thing we're most interested these days and spending a lot of our time around is just that. How are we creating a place that has really great touch points with the technology in place? So I'll give a couple of tangible examples.
[00:15:04] We've done a few clinics lately where, as I alluded to earlier, we don't even do a front desk because they may be using VA help that's offsite for all their admin tasks and their clients check in with a QR code. But what we do to create a really welcoming atmosphere is maybe have a coffee bar or one space we did it like a library because the clinic owners were really into Books and creating this kind of community shared experience.
[00:15:35] And that is a really great way to maximize revenue in a the space and the space plan, but also for a lot of offices, the people that you put up front, if they're the ones running your office and they're interrupted every 30 seconds with a new client to chat with or talk to. It's very challenging, right? And so often it just makes the most sense to have, a virtual assistant or virtual admin help and then in your physical space, you may have more of a greeter. You don't have the real estate of a big front desk. You use all of your medical records are digitized. So you don't need the big filing room. There's a lot of ways we can utilize to really get leaner on the square footage. So that's a big thing that we're doing.
[00:16:22] The other is just to speak to that admin component. Having people prepay with stored credit cards online, not needing to have the time component of checking in and payment. That's all done digitally. Booking online through a website. How people are using AI even and transcribing notes or sending exercise programs with people.
[00:16:46] And then in some places where there's offerings, where they have virtual sessions creating almost like a little studio within The space, so that may be where clinicians who don't necessarily want to work from home to be doing more telehealth type consultation. Naturopaths are big for this. Some Chiro, some physio. They have a space to come to and it functions to do those sort of digital virtual sessions.
[00:17:17] Samantha Mabe: Yeah, I love that idea of giving people a space that's designed for virtual sessions so that they've got the setup, the nice background, it's really easy for them to just like drop in, sign in and get going and not have to worry about, okay, I've got to set everything up and I've got to make sure the sound is right and all of those pieces. It's much easier for people if it's designed thoughtfully.
[00:17:40] And I think a lot of other businesses are doing this we see this In co working spaces, they'll have those specific rooms, But we have to think about that in a practice that we're building ourselves And how do we use our space to the best of its ability?
[00:17:56] Meg MacPherson: It's also about creating multifunctional spaces. So what may function as like recording studio of sorts, they may have a podcast, they can also have clinicians doing virtual sessions. It could also be a meeting room. How are we utilizing each space in at least two or three different ways? Ultimately businesses need to create as many revenue generating streams and have as many people utilizing the space and so that's a big component of that.
When to Consider Design in a New Location
[00:18:24] Samantha Mabe: So when you work with people, can you give us an idea of what they should be thinking about if they're going, okay, I want either a new location or I'm going to open a location, like, when do they start thinking about space design and getting all of this stuff done in the process and then what does that process look like for them to be able to get it all ready and open?
[00:18:48] Meg MacPherson: Yeah, I would say, you're never too early. More tangibly, what I'll say is most people are contacting us saying, Hey, I signed a lease. I get the keys in a month. I hope to be open in three months, help. And we're like, we can't because by the time you open your doors, we will just be getting started with trying to figure out a layout.
[00:19:12] And I will say for a lot of people, they'll pick a space because the price is right or the location's right, but the specifics of the space become really challenging. So there may be issues with there's no plumbing and they need to have sinks in each room or there's some major challenges with the layout that need to be completely reworked.
[00:19:41] So what we do with a lot of clients is they'll get in touch with us saying, hey, I'm still shopping around for spaces. I've narrowed down to maybe 2 or 3. Would you take a look at the space plan and highlight how you would lay it out, or if there's any kind of red flag? And so that becomes very helpful because, for sake of an easy example, if you're looking at a 2000 square foot space, we could be comparing to 2000 square foot spaces and based on the way in which they're laid out, 1 could fit 7 treatment rooms and one can fit 5. You're paying the same rent, you have the same space, but one's going to generate a lot more income just because of the dimensions of the shell, if that makes sense. And so that then becomes much easier to compare apples and apples of what space makes more sense.
[00:20:31] Or one's maybe going to need tens of thousands of dollars of plumbing installed and you want to be negotiating that on the front end or, whatever it may be that can come up. But sometimes it's helpful to do that audit before you even sign a lease.
[00:20:45] And then you want to be working on the design as you're going through those lease negotiations, ideally, because A, you usually have way more success negotiating more when you have a plan in place. Hey, this is the layout I'm looking to do. This is the design concept, and it's going to require new flooring and new lighting, and these are fixtures that I can't take with me when the lease is done. So what are you willing to cover for me to improve this space? So there's a lot more negotiating power when you have that plan in place.
[00:21:19] And then just the logistics of it. Obviously, it is a process to design a space, and the more time we have, the more thoughtfully that can be done and the less chaotic it is done now.
[00:21:30] We're completely aware that a lot of this stuff just happens because it happens like a space comes up. You have to jump at it. You're getting it in a month. What do we do?
[00:21:40] And so to speak to our process a little bit. We have kind of two ways we work with people to account for this. So we have our full design package and that's really from top to bottom working with you to plan out the space right to execution and the doors being open. Those are the ones that there's more time to work through that. Hey, I'm looking to sign a lease. I have a long fixturing period, maybe six months, seven months to Outfit the space. I don't need to be in it for at least six months. Then we have a much more robust process to like really whittle down to the design and so that it's really completely finished project from start to finish with us.
[00:22:27] For those that are a bit more I got a space, I'm getting it in a month, I have maybe 6 to 8 weeks to do construction and I need to have the doors open. Those we offer a clinic consultation. So what essentially we're doing is we can move a lot quicker, we give you all the sort of foundation or blueprint for the design. So here's how we would lay out the space. Here's the design concept. Here's the mood boards for the space. Here's anything we've suggested or sourced. And you get all that, and then it's yours to do what you want with. You can follow it to a T, or you're just like, great, I have this as a guide. I'm gonna run with it and adapt as I need to make it work for the time frame that I have.
[00:23:11] And that sort of gives people the most amount of flexibility, we believe, of depending on where you are. And what we have found for the most part is people usually opening their 2nd spot, or they've been in a spot, they've outgrown it, they usually will opt for the I want a longer fixturing period and I want to do this well. People opening for the 1st time where maybe it's a bit harder to get funding, it's usually a lot quicker and they're happier with just give me a plan and I will use it to the best of my ability.
[00:23:45] Samantha Mabe: That makes total sense. And I think a lot of business works that way, right? When you first open your business, you're like, I'm just going to figure this out. I'm going to get a little bit of help and then we're going to make it work. And as you grow, this is what I really need. This is who I really want to work with. And you can have more time and more money and more resources to invest in kind of the bigger projects that, are going to increase your profitability down the line.
[00:24:08] Meg MacPherson: Yeah. Those people who've maybe been open for four or five years. They've totally outgrown their space. They've outgrown their brand even. They've gone from, I created a logo in Canva and these are my three colors, because that's what I needed to do to get going, are now like, I have a full brand identity. I'm looking for this bigger space, but they know their business so intimately of I know I need X amount of treatment rooms. I know I'm going to have these types of practitioners. I know I'm also going to have these type of group offerings. They really know what going to generate income, who their avatar is, and that's where they're like, let's go, let's build this out well. And that's a lot of our clients out, right? They've been in business five plus years and ready to take that on.
[00:24:53] Samantha Mabe: Yeah.
Don't be Afraid to Stand Out
[00:24:53] Samantha Mabe: Do you have any other advice as we wrap up about any of this, like designing your space, making the most of it, when you should be thinking about that, anything we didn't cover?
[00:25:04] Meg MacPherson: What I would give advice to, to speak to your earlier point, not everyone has the time, capacity, funding to, to work and do a really, in depth design plan with a design firm. But what I will say is that when design is done thoughtfully, no matter the budget, That is translated.
[00:25:27] We like to give permission to not just do what everyone else has done because it's what everyone else has done. Don't be afraid to infuse your personality into a space. Don't be afraid to do things differently. Really tap into how you like to work as a clinician, who you like to see, and reflect that in the space.
[00:25:51] The more that you bring, personality, bring yourself, bring your brand in and in an intentional way that will always, always do you better than playing it safe and doing what everyone else has done.
[00:26:05] Really what I'm getting at to be the most clear on it is you don't just need the one accent wall in your brand color with your logo on it, right? That's how everyone puts in the front desk, the chairs lined up, the like turquoise wall and their logo. And that's that. And what we're trying to say is Not only is it okay, but it is encouraged to really be thoughtful with how you make your space stand out and make it different. And no matter the budget like I said, that will always translate.
[00:26:34] Samantha Mabe: I love that and I love seeing the spaces you create because they are so different and they're unique and you just know walking in to those kinds of spaces that this is somewhere special. They're not doing what everybody else is doing. Even if it's called the same thing, there is something more going on here that is going to get me results because They know me as a person and as a client, and I can feel that in the space.
[00:27:03] Meg MacPherson: Exactly, and it's the same, I think that about people's homes. If you walk into someone's home, you should have a sense of who they are as a person or as a family. When you walk into a home that's like super aesthetically designed, but everything's just from A box store, and there's no proof of life of who are the individuals who live here, right? There's no unique artwork or trinkets or colors.
[00:27:32] I think people this day and age play it really safe in that way. I'll just keep it super neutral because it's safe. But it makes it very hard to get to know you as a person, as a brand. And that's really the currency that we're trading here when you're working with people.
Connect with Meg
[00:27:51] Samantha Mabe: Thank you so much for sharing. Where is the best place for people to connect with you, to see your work, and to learn more about what you do?
[00:27:59] Meg MacPherson: Yeah, so you can find this on Instagram at Articulate Design Co. or via our website www. articulatedesignco. com. Those are probably the best spots and feel free to send a DM or we have a contact form on our website if anyone's wanting to get in touch and learn more about what we do.
[00:28:23] Samantha Mabe: Thank you so much for sharing.
[00:28:25] Meg MacPherson: My pleasure. So great to be on here.
[00:28:34] Samantha Mabe: Thank you so much for joining me for this session of the Elevate Your Practice Summit. If you enjoyed it, make sure to go to the elevateyourpractice. co website in order to connect with the speaker and get access to the free resources they mentioned in their session. You can also share the summit with any of your friends in the health and wellness space and send them to the website elevate your practice dot co. You can get 30 percent off your first three months of practice better at practice better. io and use the code L A T S 30.
