Long gone are the days where your surgical suite doubled as the lunch room, your staff meetings were either outside or consisted of your co-workers sitting in each others laps, your cat ward was also the dog ward, exotics ward, and wildlife ward.
Long gone are the days where your surgical suite doubled as the lunch room, your staff meetings were either outside or consisted of your co-workers sitting in each others laps, your cat ward was also the dog ward, exotics ward, and wildlife ward. The ringworm cases were housed in someone’s office, and your kennel cough, parvovirus, pneumonia, distemper, or possible rabies cases went wherever as long as they were away from EVERYTHING! Your hospital has expanded. Bigger isn’t necessarily better, but it does have its perks and fairshare of downsides as well.
What’s to love?
- You are no longer running into your co-workers or being stepped on by others.
- You are able to treat your patients in a more open area making it safer to maneuver with them unless you are dealing with “wall climbing” feral cats.
- You finally have separate wards so your cardiac kittys are not hyperventilating due to the incessant barkers in the dog ward.
- You can actually isolate a patient properly and lessen risk of exposure to your other patients.
- You have a dedicated surgery suite, possibly two which makes for a more sterile operating arena.
- TECHNOLOGY! Usually with an expansion you will get an upgraded computer system, digital X-ray if you don’t already have it, and of course an ultrasound suite.
- A new front desk area which clients will love and some maybe new scrubs to match.
- An actual break room!
So what’s not to love?
- Bigger means more of everything including more stress, more patients, and more staff.
- More patients equals a beefier surgical schedule and more in-hospital patients altogether= longer hours.
- New staff to handle the client/patient increase means more personalities to deal with and figuring out how to co-exist without beating each other (only somedays, ha, ha.)
- New doctors on board means learning what the new hires prefer as far as handling techniques, pain control, etc.
- Clients may not appreciate your bigger facility stating its not as personalized as it used to be and they hate the new paint colors.
- Your new scrubs may be Chartreuse or a “poop brown” color that you look horrible in.
- Your new break room has quickly resembled the mess hall in a *M*A*S*H* unit and you are stuck cleaning it.
What has been your personal experience during a hospital expansion? What was an easy transition or what was the most difficult situation to deal with? If you had to do it all over again what would definitely do next time or NEVER, ever do again?
Comments
All I can say sonogirl is
All I can say sonogirl is that every client that I have seen that has expanded had a very difficult year. & when they had expanded they found a way to clutter everything up or kept it organized and had to dig deep into the hospital pockets to pay for more underlying costs and bottom line didn’t necessarily increase. So yes be careful what you ask for.
I personally would build a nice well designed 3 exam room hospital for 3-4 total dr staff. Then select clients better instead of adding on. cater to the 5 * clients more and more as you grow. This may sound elitist but we also have to have fruitful lives and some time outside of the clinic. Those that have expanded that i have seen all have less personal time and are growing older quicker.
Keep spacious: treatment, waiting room, surgery and a dog and cat overnight intensive care
Moderate space: exam rooms…. this will keep the whole family from wanting to come in and encourage just 1-2 people and the pet. nothing like the second and 3rd cousins coming in for the puppy exam and all asking Q when you have medicla cases to tend to behind the door.
Minor space: short term tx and surgical recovery (and keep that padded) they are sleeping why do they need a ton of space? Behind reception desk. Separate reception office for private conversations. cat ward: build up. Cats love high places and put something on the wall for them to look at even videos.
Sound proof the walls. Nothing like an echo for those beagles to bounce the bark around.
Thats all I can say off the top of my head but you have listed it well!
All I can say sonogirl is
All I can say sonogirl is that every client that I have seen that has expanded had a very difficult year. & when they had expanded they found a way to clutter everything up or kept it organized and had to dig deep into the hospital pockets to pay for more underlying costs and bottom line didn’t necessarily increase. So yes be careful what you ask for.
I personally would build a nice well designed 3 exam room hospital for 3-4 total dr staff. Then select clients better instead of adding on. cater to the 5 * clients more and more as you grow. This may sound elitist but we also have to have fruitful lives and some time outside of the clinic. Those that have expanded that i have seen all have less personal time and are growing older quicker.
Keep spacious: treatment, waiting room, surgery and a dog and cat overnight intensive care
Moderate space: exam rooms…. this will keep the whole family from wanting to come in and encourage just 1-2 people and the pet. nothing like the second and 3rd cousins coming in for the puppy exam and all asking Q when you have medicla cases to tend to behind the door.
Minor space: short term tx and surgical recovery (and keep that padded) they are sleeping why do they need a ton of space? Behind reception desk. Separate reception office for private conversations. cat ward: build up. Cats love high places and put something on the wall for them to look at even videos.
Sound proof the walls. Nothing like an echo for those beagles to bounce the bark around.
Thats all I can say off the top of my head but you have listed it well!
One of the things we did was
One of the things we did was to give each staff member a section or room of the hospital that they were responsible to double check each day. They were to make sure the area was cleaned, stocked, and in order. One room per person seems to work well without overwhelming anyone.
One of the things we did was
One of the things we did was to give each staff member a section or room of the hospital that they were responsible to double check each day. They were to make sure the area was cleaned, stocked, and in order. One room per person seems to work well without overwhelming anyone.
Wow, what thought provoking
Wow, what thought provoking questions! I was just glad to get myself and everyone else through it. We saw patients on the morning of Friday Dec 30 2011, moved in on Friday afternoon, and opened for business in our new location on Sat Dec 31 (had to be in before the new year for tax reasons and of course we got a little behind schedule as all construction does!)
I don’t think any part of it was easy, except that we were moving from a dungeon to a gorgeous roomy facility.
If we ever did it again, I would wish that we hired a moving company to help us move. Picture all of us filling our cars and SUVs and pickups with boxes and boxes and boxes and driving them over. I would wish that we had prepared a more definitive moving plan with the staff, who claimed not to be informed enough about what was going on (although construction being what it is, my bosses didn’t know until the last minute either). I would wish that we would have closed completely for at least a couple of days to allow more time for the physical move. I would wish that the staff had a little more input on some of the details, like the sprayers that are too short to reach to the end of the wet tables, so they are really useless to use for cleaning which is ridiculously unfortunate since that is their purpose.
OK on the positive side! If we ever did it again, I would keep my bosses who have an amazing sense of beauty and style when it comes to design and decorating, and the persistence with the construction company to make sure they did it like we wanted. I would keep the same number of staff as we did, waiting to make sure that the increase in business is going to continue before expanding the staff and then having to let some of them go.(because we know that new clients will always come to a new place, but may not always stay long term). I would keep prices at the same level for awhile to allow clients to adjust and continue their trust for us, because we knew they would be so sure that we would increase prices to “pay for this building”. And as we have done, we would always keep the same philosophy of personalized family-type care and never get so big that we can’t provide that personalized attention. That is our brand.
But really, don’t ever ask me to do it again.
Wow, what thought provoking
Wow, what thought provoking questions! I was just glad to get myself and everyone else through it. We saw patients on the morning of Friday Dec 30 2011, moved in on Friday afternoon, and opened for business in our new location on Sat Dec 31 (had to be in before the new year for tax reasons and of course we got a little behind schedule as all construction does!)
I don’t think any part of it was easy, except that we were moving from a dungeon to a gorgeous roomy facility.
If we ever did it again, I would wish that we hired a moving company to help us move. Picture all of us filling our cars and SUVs and pickups with boxes and boxes and boxes and driving them over. I would wish that we had prepared a more definitive moving plan with the staff, who claimed not to be informed enough about what was going on (although construction being what it is, my bosses didn’t know until the last minute either). I would wish that we would have closed completely for at least a couple of days to allow more time for the physical move. I would wish that the staff had a little more input on some of the details, like the sprayers that are too short to reach to the end of the wet tables, so they are really useless to use for cleaning which is ridiculously unfortunate since that is their purpose.
OK on the positive side! If we ever did it again, I would keep my bosses who have an amazing sense of beauty and style when it comes to design and decorating, and the persistence with the construction company to make sure they did it like we wanted. I would keep the same number of staff as we did, waiting to make sure that the increase in business is going to continue before expanding the staff and then having to let some of them go.(because we know that new clients will always come to a new place, but may not always stay long term). I would keep prices at the same level for awhile to allow clients to adjust and continue their trust for us, because we knew they would be so sure that we would increase prices to “pay for this building”. And as we have done, we would always keep the same philosophy of personalized family-type care and never get so big that we can’t provide that personalized attention. That is our brand.
But really, don’t ever ask me to do it again.
Ok that had me belly laughing
Ok that had me belly laughing for sure catlady, but kudos to you for getting your crew through it and I know your facility came out super gorgeous so all worth the tremendous effort.
Why is it that no contractor seems to understand the need for long sprayers!!! We had the exact same problem, but were fortunate enough to have it fixed asap. However even if you have a long sprayer if your wet table is not angled correctly the water just sits there and NEVER drains properly, which is what happened at my clinic. So we still have to take the heavy grates off, get some gloves on, and shuffle the funky water or worse down the drains. Eeesh, what a pain.
Ok that had me belly laughing
Ok that had me belly laughing for sure catlady, but kudos to you for getting your crew through it and I know your facility came out super gorgeous so all worth the tremendous effort.
Why is it that no contractor seems to understand the need for long sprayers!!! We had the exact same problem, but were fortunate enough to have it fixed asap. However even if you have a long sprayer if your wet table is not angled correctly the water just sits there and NEVER drains properly, which is what happened at my clinic. So we still have to take the heavy grates off, get some gloves on, and shuffle the funky water or worse down the drains. Eeesh, what a pain.
ha! If we ever get the long
ha! If we ever get the long sprayers I’ll let you know if the angle is right!!!
ha! If we ever get the long
ha! If we ever get the long sprayers I’ll let you know if the angle is right!!!