We’ve all been there. We go to the doctor, sign in and sit in a lobby flipping through irrelevant magazines for what seems like an eternity. We finally get called to the doctor’s office only to face another eternity waiting for a nurse or doctor to open the door … flipping through more magazines, curiously inspecting the medical equipment and having hopes raised as footsteps near the door only to have them dashed as the steps walk on past. Once we finally get to speak with a medical professional they tell us we need to speak with a specialist across town (or down the hall if we are lucky). Eternities mount up and in the end it’s no wonder we avoid doctor visits whenever possible.

Group Health realizes the traditional health care model is not the best in terms of customer (or patient) service and is in the process of developing a new system – one that, in theory, will put the patients’ experience first.

Word spread in early May that Group Health was planning a $24 million expansion to their Burien clinic but details were sparse at the time. After touring Group Health’s Integrated Care and Facility Design Warehouse in Tukwila on June 17, a clearer picture of their plan has emerged.

Dr. Wellesley Chapman, MD is a primary care doctor and medical center chief for Group Health’s Burien Clinic on S.W. 146th St and has been splitting his time between doctor duties at the clinic and brainstorming duties at the Tukwila warehouse. Dr. Chapman said he fully understands patient frustration and there new process, called 3P (production, preparation and process) is all about making Group Health clinics more efficient.

“That can be an excruciatingly long process for patients,” Chapman said of the traditional health care model as he walked into the expansive warehouse floor filled with life-size cardboard approximations of what the new clinic will look like. It is a cardboard fort of epic proportion.

“They are spending a couple hours in the building waiting … (when) the actual service they are getting doesn’t take very long to deliver to them. So what if we said we can coordinate this the same way that any good restaurant can figure out how to get your salad to you or your meal to you when it’s hot. They are just able to get that to you when it needs to get to you in the right order and we feel we can do the same thing,” he said.

A near-constant flow of Group Health staff, patients and architects flow through the warehouse on a daily basis, providing input on anything that might make life easier. Chapman said it all started out with sketches on paper that were narrowed down to a few favorite designs that were melded together. From there the sketches became a life-size cardboard replica that can be easily tweaked. Now that the larger design has been established they are focusing on the small details, looking at the layout of each individual room and everything within it. Eventually the cardboard will be scrapped for real materials and Chapman expects a solid blueprint for the Burien (and future) clinics sometime in August or September.

Chapman explained their ideal situation where patients go to one room to take care of essentially everything. They can see their nurse, doctor, get medicine and pharmacist consultations, shots, even financial information on the real cost of procedures or medicines after insurance – all in one room. And fast.

The faster service comes from an “onstage / offstage” concept according to Chapman. Patient rooms will have two doors, one for the patient and one for staff. Patients will enter the new, pleasant rooms that are more spacious and less cluttered with “scary” medical equipment. These rooms are the stage. Offstage is behind the staff door where equipment and staff have a corridor where the “scary” equipment is stashed. Doctors, nurses and pharmacist teams will be dedicated to a particular room to provide quicker, mostly-one stop service.

In addition, Chapman said the new clinics will have a more logical flow with the pharmacy and lab right inside the entrance since many people are just coming in to pick up medications or test results.

By the numbers, a Group Health press release states their goals as having 80 percent fewer handoffs during the patient-care process, 50 percent less distance traveled by patients and staff, 50 percent less space used for patient waiting areas and storage and 100 percent “of the clinical space to be multi-functional to support either primary care or specialty practice.”

Bill Biggs, facility leader for Group Health, said the timeline for the Burien clinic's expansion is not set as they are still dealing with rezoning issues with the city, but it is confirmed that they will build on the current clinic site. Burien City Manager Mike Martin indicated in a newsletter that the new clinic will likely be completed in 2013 or fall of 2012 at the earliest.

“If we start building things easier for our patients we’re gonna build them easier and better for our staff, including our doctors,” Chapman said. Speaking of the traditional model, he said: “There is a lot of waste, a lot of waiting, a lot of anxiety … built into our processes because we didn’t really think about (the patients) or we thought about them from the doctor’s perspective: ‘How do we get me on the golf course?’”

“I don’t golf,” Chapman said. “I want to do the right thing for my patients.”

While the 3P process and Integrated Care and Facility Design is not new to the health care field, Micheal Erikson, Group Health vice president of Primary Care Services said in a press release, “One reason we committed to ICFD is because we saw how highly successful it’s been at other organizations.”

The core concept has been out there for a while but Chapman said Group Health can take it one step further since they provide insurance along with health care. It will allow them to provide patients with financial information right alongside their medical information - all in the same room.