Radio Front Desk

Rethinking clinic design: What if your clinic could do more? | Meg & Neena of Articulate Design + Consulting

• Jane.app • Episode 11

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In this episode, we talk to Meg and Neena, the founders of Articulate Design + Consulting. These physios-turned-designers are on a mission to transform healthcare spaces for patients and clinicians everywhere. Here, they’ll reveal how thoughtful design can improve not just your clinic’s look, but also the care you deliver — and why ditching the front desk might be the best move you’ll ever make.

What you’ll learn:

  • How design can subtly reshape the care you provide
  • Ways to infuse your personality into your clinic
  • How to rethink conventional clinic layouts to optimize functionality

Resources mentioned in this episode:

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Speaker 1:

the better you know yourself and your point of view and your voice, the better you can then translate that into your space. Like if you like bright, bold colors, bring bright, bold colors into your space. If you love to travel, bring pictures from your travel and frame them as your artwork like, infuse yourself in there and it's pretty magical. Like we're giving you permission to take down the skeleton poster and the muscle poster, unless it's you?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, unless it's you. Welcome back to Radio Front Desk by JNAP. I'm your host, denzel Ford. In today's episode we talk to Meg and Nina, the founders of Articulate Design and Consulting. These physios-turned-designers are on a mission to transform healthcare spaces for patients and clinicians everywhere. Here they'll reveal how thoughtful design can improve not just your clinic's look but also the care you deliver, and why ditching the front desk might be the best move you'll ever make. Let's get into it. Ditching the front desk might be the best move you'll ever make. Let's get into it. Megan. Nina, it's so great to meet you in person. Thank you for coming today. I'm so excited to talk about your business, articulate Design, so welcome.

Speaker 2:

Yeah thanks for having us. We're so excited. Let's dive into an example. So your first clinic was, interestingly, on our front desk mug, because it was also on the cover of our very exciting moment for us on the cover of our first magazine, front desk magazine as well.

Speaker 4:

Talk to me about that experience and how it opened up a new door for you, well we had been talking, complaining to each other for a long time about this lack in our industry you know, we're not taking advantage of the environment and using that as a tool to give a great experience and we had just been talking about it enough, to the point where we were done talking about it and we were just like, okay, the next person who approaches us to talk about design, we're just going to throw our hat in the ring. And Meg and I both have loved design in our personal lives. We've done major projects in our homes. Meg has her own studio clinic that she designed.

Speaker 4:

So we had friends and colleagues who would ask us like little for little, tidbits of advice, just because we had an interest. And an old classmate of Meg's approached her and Meg was like, we'll do it, we're, we're designers, we're gonna do this for you and and it took a lot of trust and a lot of patience from that first client but we kind of just hit the ground running. We were just so passionate and so excited about doing this for a colleague that it didn't seem daunting. I don't think there was, you know, that much like imposter syndrome, even until we like got paid for it. It felt really. And then I was like oh my gosh, somebody paid us for this.

Speaker 1:

It felt so natural Like Shoutout Connective in Toronto. They like put full trust in us, not having a portfolio or anything. They just had the gumption to go forward and it changed our lives really. And it did. It felt like something clicked. It was like we could use so much of what we'd used being clinicians and being physios and then bring this whole creative side to it and then do it in a way that really made sense for that, for that client, for that clinic, like it. Really I think that space we just really brought to life in a way that they also couldn't imagine. And so from then on it sounds so cliche, but that was the turning point, it really was.

Speaker 4:

It was also this inflection point where visuals have become so important, right, I think when people are shopping around for different clinics, they do it in a different way than maybe we did 10 or 15 years ago. It's not just the pad of paper that the doctor gave me that gives like the three physio locations, right, people are shopping around and looking on social media and websites, and we garnered a lot of attention from the industry, from colleagues of Connectives coming into the space and and that was really cool. It was just kind of a snowball effect in that we we made some noise in the industry with that project and, uh, yeah, it was.

Speaker 1:

It's one of our proudest ones still. And it was our first and most people cringe at their first and we're still super proud of it.

Speaker 4:

Yeah absolutely.

Speaker 2:

It's on a mug. Yeah, I mean we, we love it it was an instant win for me when I saw it. So thank you, thank you for allowing us to do that. Tell me the role of um, like putting somebody's personality. You're talking about brand, you know, but like, underneath a brand is a human being usually, especially in the types of businesses that we're talking about. So how do you think about somebody's personality as it could be reflected in their space?

Speaker 1:

For many practitioners probably most even listening to this, especially the solo practitioners their personality is their brand, whether they know it or not. Like newsflash, you are your brand. It's a little trickier obviously for, like, a bigger, multidisciplinary clinic and we can like talk about that a little bit separately. But you are your brand and if bringing your personality into a space is an immediate connection point, you have so much to offer of who you are as a person. You have so much depth to you as a person. You have a personality and when you can translate that into your space, I can't speak enough about how that creates a relationship with your clients in a very intimate way. That's very beneficial for both. The better you know yourself and your point of view and your voice, the better you can then translate that into your space. Like, if you like bright, bold colors, bring bright, bold colors into your space. If you love to travel, bring pictures from your travel and frame them as your artwork, like infuse yourself in there and it's pretty magical.

Speaker 1:

Like we're giving you permission to take down the skeleton poster and the muscle poster and the like inspirational, like someone's on a mountain poster and unless it's you, yeah unless it's you, but you can just bring yourself into a space and I think for bigger companies, there needs to be like more of an exercise around that and really what they want to represent. Um, and as Nina said, there's like a personality to the brand and maybe it's a little bit different than from the person, but there is translation there, but that really is at the heart of what we're trying to say, like there should be a personality of the space and it's palpable.

Speaker 4:

The relationship that we create with our clients in our wellness industries. Relationship that we create with our clients in our wellness industries, that's everything right People will. They're not going to go to different therapists every week. They find one that they connect with and that's the relationship. And so creating an environment which just enhances that or expresses that further, I think just does a job in a good job in solidifying that connection what are some other examples, like actual examples of personality?

Speaker 4:

you mentioned bold colors, but you must have a few others artwork we we've had uh, most recently at the cheerful pelvis, the clinic staff.

Speaker 1:

They actually all came together and made the art yeah, and so that was like a really cool fun. Yeah, that was.

Speaker 4:

We chose the colors they could work with, but yes, yes, and it was just this cool experience for them as a group. So that's just pure personality there. In other cases we've had clients who are really proud of their cities, so they have, like, different cityscapes and they're kind of an urban brand, and so they've had that kind of artwork.

Speaker 1:

We had 416. There is another client it's actually two people. One was like really into reading and books, one's a huge sporty hockey player athlete.

Speaker 1:

But, like, their reception was this communal library with, like vintage sports equipment and it was just the mashing of the two personalities but it really worked. I mean, who walks into a clinic and sees a library, right, but the ability to like take books out and bring them back and it creates this community vibe. But it's an immediate like sense of personality of the space. We did another space that was like a coffee bar. The guys who own it are really into coffee I don't know if there's a name for that, like a coffee file.

Speaker 2:

There's got to be a name.

Speaker 1:

But they make beautiful coffees and that's what they wanted to do, and so little moments like that are really that's what brings the personality in, and everyone has that in them. They just need to like, dig it out.

Speaker 4:

Well, and that's like a Jane term, right, like the moments of delight. We're so all about that. And those don't have to be expensive. Right, it can be small things like a shared library doesn't cost much at all. But it's the moments of delight that really create connection between owners or clinicians and their clientele.

Speaker 3:

Hey there, Christina, here Just a quick moment to share that this episode is brought to you by Jane. We know how much heart you put into building a practice you're proud of, and that's why we're here To make things like scheduling, charting and payments run a little smoother. I wonder what you both think about the idea that these choices that you're making in your clients are actually helping change how they offer health care in some way.

Speaker 2:

Do you think that that's impacting the actual delivery of health care?

Speaker 4:

I think like from a functional standpoint, most certainly. So a space that is well designed makes it easier to deliver our services. So from that perspective, I think it's a very tangible benefit of good design is that our service delivery is just that much more efficient. So you know the integration of tech and things like that, we can see the benefits right up front. I think the intangible benefits of good design. A lot of us feel that, like Meg and I feel that in our own lives when we go to a spa or restaurants and things like that. There also is like the idea of biophilic design, right. So that's where design elements can actually create physiological change in the body. So lighting, regulating hormones, the release of serotonin around plants, or even a picture of a plant. So there is just this growing body of data that shows that the physical space can influence our experience more tangibly. So we feel very strongly about that.

Speaker 1:

And I think it's like anything. I, like all human beings, we all live on a spectrum of sensitivity to different things. Nina and I are both people who are highly sensitive to our environment. Some people maybe are less so, but I do think it's a spectrum and we're starting to recognize that a lot more, and I think we can't forget that when you are a provider, a healthcare provider in particular, it is a really taxing job, it's stressful at times. You take on a lot, you embody a lot of the struggles of the clients that you see, and so for us, you know again like one of our taglines is we're clinicians designing for clinicians. Ultimately, our main goal is to design for the people working in the space more than the people visiting the space.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, it seems like what you're up to is that you're creating this space and you are creating for the practitioners. Yeah, it seems like what you're up to is that you're creating this space and you are creating for the practitioners, but when you build up the practitioners, they're offering better care.

Speaker 1:

Exactly that's kind of the loop we see is that that's our entry point of when you build up the clinician, when you make it an environment that they're happy to be in, then that trickles down to the people that they're treating, and so that's the point we like to enter and the point of view that we like to take in the design, and what's the relationship between the physical and the digital?

Speaker 1:

Oh yeah, everything. It's very intimate, it's very well and it should be integrated Like we live in an increasingly digital world. We live in a world where most people their main touch point or first touch point with a clinic or a business is digitally. It might be on social media, it might be through their website, and for us, the physical space just needs to be a continuation of that experience, Mind you, assuming that's a really great experience.

Speaker 4:

For our clients who are starting fresh with a new space, we ask them at that time to either ensure that they're really happy with their brand, the digital brand, or consider exploring that further and developing that in tandem with us working on the physical design. So oftentimes we've collaborated with digital creators so that our clients are ending up with like a really seamless process and just. I guess one thing I would say is, with a physical space versus a digital, some of the visuals need to be just translated a little differently. So digital, we want really vibrant, very bright, powerful fonts and colors. We can take some liberties with that into the physical space to soften that, to create a good physical experience. But that translation needs to be really intentional. So for everybody out there, just thinking of doing those at the same time, if possible, if you're in that position, or before you're starting to change one, consider the other, always consider them together.

Speaker 2:

On that note of translation, talk to me about the no front desk, front desk.

Speaker 4:

Yeah, we love that concept. You know we're often talking about income generating spaces and things like that. With the advent of amazing tech, we don't have to be beholden to the traditional setup, right, we don't necessarily at this point need multiple people at a giant front desk with a fax machine and files and all of that. But I think a lot of people are afraid to deviate from that because starting a clinic is a really daunting thing and I think people are just kind of too scared to try anything different. But we're really encouraging of our clients to really take advantage of all of the amazing tech that's out there so that that reception space can either become something else like another treatment room, possibly, or a really special experience that's. That creates the opportunity for a coffee bar, that it creates the opportunity for like a children's play area in a pediatric clinic and also for our solo practitioners. You know you can have a very sophisticated practice without needing any of that. You don't need any of that.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, we like to push that a lot. It's interesting, like the status quo really is a strong pull for a lot of people and we like to push a lot of people out of their comfort zone nicely, but in a way that again is like there's never been a better time to think outside the box, I think, with like services like ginger desk, where your VA support can be completely remote and off-site, obviously, with Jane and the ability to self-check-in and self-bookings and payments like why not use all of these tools to your advantage? And especially when square footage is at a premium in many places, right, we really want to maximize that and make sure the clinic functions as efficiently as possible.

Speaker 2:

I have one really granular question, as I'm listening to you talk about this how would clinics communicate to clients how to move within a no front desk front desk situation, when they're probably used to the front desk themselves? So is it like you send them an email or like, how do you tell patients to come in and check themselves and using this iPad and then go grab a coffee?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I think it depends place to place. A lot of that can just be done in the correspondence that happens with bookings. I also want to be clear, like going back to like understanding your brand really well. It's important to make sure this makes sense for, like your demographic, where you are. This isn't for everybody, right, but I think it's important for those that feel like this meets their needs and it works for the space that they're in. There's many ways to communicate that A lot do like even on their website, like a video tour. Some send that out as their confirmation booking email. Like, by the way, this is how it works when you show up um, we like to do like really interesting fun signage that make it very clear and I think it's quite intuitive, like when we design it when people walk in what they're to do.

Speaker 4:

And then, as Meg said, there's spaces and places where the front, a front desk, is necessary, but through the use of tech, the footprint can be much smaller. Right, but having someone instead of, like your really important office manager, also having to like greet and check in patients and things like that you know, this is where we have interns and student volunteers or like your friendliest, most bubbliest person, can be at the front Like more of a greeter.

Speaker 4:

A greeter a welcomer right. Yeah, it doesn't have to be someone who also has like three other really important roles that then become diluted.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, interesting. Okay, another granular question. In my house I have a cart and in this cart I allegedly place things Pencils, paper for my kids to do artwork, some of the little trinkets that they have but what I notice is that this cart is usually full and there are also all these items that should be in the cart on the ground around the cart. My understanding is that you have a concept called anti-cart and I wonder if you can help me solve my cart problem.

Speaker 2:

Why are you anti-cart? And is it because of what I'm telling you?

Speaker 1:

okay, we just like to avoid things that become a catch-all. We're we're not anti-cart, I want to put on the record. We're not anti-cart. We are just very intentional that when you design a space whether it is your home, your office, your clinic that you think about all the things that need to go places and you've considered where they will go and live. And so our philosophy more is that everything has a home and that we don't just buy furnishings and things that are just going to collect stuff. It's like we do an inventory with clinicians of like tell us every single thing that needs to go in your treatment room so that we can be sure when we design it that there is a home.

Speaker 1:

We were at Cheerful Pelvis yesterday. They even took pictures of how the shelf should look and put it on the inside of the like door, things like that. Where it's more the intentionality, it's that these things have a home and if the cart has a purpose of you know there's gonna be a, a cup here with the crayons and the paper and and it's made clear to the participants interacting with the cart, that's fine. But we find often people just get these furnishings without the intention.

Speaker 4:

I also feel like part of it is we have not found a cart we like yet, and maybe we'll change yeah, that's like that's a bit of an easter egg that we're working on some design around this, yeah but I think that's one thing, but also a lot of our clients who have asked for carts it's the organization within so it and taking an audit of what is there like. Are there too many craft supplies? If they're only using a specific subset, maybe that's all that needs to be on the cart and you know. Good luck.

Speaker 2:

I love it. What is a trend that you see right now that you're loving?

Speaker 4:

love it. What is a trend that you see right now that you're loving? Color saturation, just the use of big, bold colors. Maximalism is a thing right now. I'm not saying that that's like what I would throw into every clinic, but I think just the idea of being okay with, like, injecting color and personality, that's a trend I really love.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, this isn't going to answer your question in a satisfying way, but the trend being that, as I said earlier, there's never been a better time or more acceptable time to just do what you want, like permission to throw the blueprint out the window and create spaces and places that work for how you need it to work, and that may include, like the colors you bring in or the artwork or what have you, but just really go wild.

Speaker 4:

A trend that I've noticed that I do love, though is like when clinic owners are, there's a more of a hospitality element to their welcoming.

Speaker 1:

A lot of places are now offering a beverage, offering something there's just there is more of a hospital hospitality vibe, which is so in alignment with our whole philosophy I also think, too, bringing like more residential fixtures in so for like a clinic space, in particular, bringing in curtains that are not medical grade curtains if you don't need them right, or bringing in rugs, bringing in um lighting that's more residentially inclined than commercial and that softens the space so much. We do that a lot and recommend it a lot. Yeah well.

Speaker 2:

Thank you both so much for all of your helpful ideas and sharing your story with everyone today. This has been a great episode. Thank you for being here thanks for having us.

Speaker 4:

yeah, it's our pleasure, our pleasure, our delight.

Speaker 2:

Thanks for tuning in to Radio Front Desk. If you found this episode helpful, it would mean so much to me if you gave it a rating and leave a review letting me know what you think. And if you're a fan, you can subscribe to Radio Front Desk on Apple Music, spotify and wherever you get your podcasts. Thank you.