It is a fact that Healthcare Reform will result in more patients entering the system.

It is also hard to argue with the premise that more patients in the system will increase the need for more medical office space.  How much more space and what forms that space will take is open to question. 

INCREASING EFFICIENCY TO SQUEEZE MORE OUT OF EXISTING MEDICAL OFFICES

An increase in the number of patients doesn't always require an increase in medical office space.  There are a number of steps that can be taken to increase the utilization of existing space.

ELECTRONIC MEDICAL RECORDS - Space previously dedicated to the storage of paper records can be re-purposed.  Medical record space may not always be suitably located within a practice for direct conversion to patient care activities, but is frequently suitable for use by another administrative function.  That other function's space, in turn, can then be converted for patient care activities.

DEDICATED PHYSICIAN OFFICES - In many medical offices this is already a thing of the past.  Though some specialists will continue to require traditional offices in which to consult with patients and their families, increasingly primary care physicians conduct such conversations in exam rooms.  Electronic medical records, the rise of on-line medical journals, and e-mail, further diminish the need for dedicated physician office space.  Physician offices are increasingly becoming a perk, rather than a requirement.

SHIFTS - Manufacturers have long used additional shifts to accommodate increasing demand for a product.  Currently, most physician office visits are scheduled between the hours of nine to five.  By increasing the number of hours an office is open by just four hours per day, say from 7:30 to 7:30, the same space could potentially service fifty-percent more patients.  Additional benefits of this expansion of hours include:  greater accessibility to healthcare for working patients, and the ability to accommodate healthcare employees' scheduling desires.

WHERE AND WHAT

When it comes to the size and location requirements of new medical office space, there may be a divergence of views between investor/developers and healthcare organizations.  For institutional investors and developers size does matter.  It takes a similar amount of effort to invest in a $5,000,000 building as it does for a $20,000,000 building.  Different players in the market each have their own "sweet spot," which may be totally unrelated to the optimum size for local healthcare organizations.  Investor/developers also frequently prefer facilities located on existing medical campuses.

Healthcare providers, on the other hand, often prefer a more distributed delivery network.  Especially in larger metropolitan areas, there is a need to locate medical offices in proximity to the patients.  Though the clustering of physician offices may be desirable for some operational purposes and provide some cost efficiencies, the need to cluster offices must be balanced with the need for proximity to patient populations.

WHAT'S NEXT

As the movement away from private practitioners and towards physician employees continues, so will the repositioning and consolidation of physician practices.  Healthcare organizations will increasingly be confronted with questions of how best to service an increasing patient population while containing costs.  In this environment, there will be a role for both the improved utilization of existing facilities and the development of new facilities.