BROOKINGS – Avera Medical Group of Brookings is undergoing changes to help the patients and staff have a better experience at the clinic, said Patrick Siegling, clinic director.

At the end of its major back-to-front renovation project, not only will the clinic have a different look, but it will run smoother for all, he said.

“What was patient-friendly 20 years ago when certain pieces of this building were built is probably no longer considered patient-friendly and what we were able to do with this remodel ... is bring our facility in line with what we already have for our commitment to deliver best-in-class medical care with the highest degree of compassion,” Siegling said.

Patients shouldn’t experience any interruption of services, with plenty of signs telling them where to go.

A lot of thought went into the renovation before any construction took place, Siegling added. Avera invited a focus group of patients to give feedback over several months on what they were seeing, what they didn’t like, and what could be better. Avera also consulted staff to get ideas about how they could do their jobs more efficiently.

“The proudest thing for me is what our patients gave us, marrying that with what our staff gave us and then we give it to our Avera architects ... and they were able to give us this incredible design that we’re gonna have here when it’s all done,” Siegling said.

The renovations started in February and will continue through summer 2018 in five phases, he said.

“In October, we opened our new specialty clinic, which is located next door. We cleared out pretty much one full pod of eight specialists, moved over to our new clinic next door, so that left one pod open,” Siegling said.

“Now we’re just starting at the back working our way through the building to the front. Pretty much going pod by pod where each phase takes about four months,” he said.

“We are done with phase one, which was lab, radiology and PT (physical therapy), and we’re in the middle of phase 2, which is one of our patient care hubs (for family medicine),” Siegling said.

They started with “the most difficult piece,” and lab, radiology and PT are now centrally located.

This is meant to help the patient by improving patient flow, patient comfort and patient privacy, Siegling said.

“We really wanted to improve the wayfinding and make it easy for patients to find their way around and get to where they were going,” he said. “We’re also taking more of our staff and making them available to patients. ... We’re gonna put them out in front of the pods, so if you have questions, you want to schedule a follow-up appointment, you want to leave a message for your doctor, that sort of thing, those people will be right there.”

Health care is changing, and medical facilities must adapt.

“With patient comfort, that was things like making our exam rooms a lot bigger so they could accommodate patients’ families,” Siegling said, adding that could include a parent with several small children, or adult children accompanying an elderly parent. Hallways and exam rooms are also getting bigger

Patient privacy is one of the biggest issues the medical community now faces, he said.

“We wanted to ensure wherever a patient was sharing sensitive information whether it was in an exam room or at registration or scheduling the next appointment, that we took every step necessary we could where that information would stay private,” Siegling said.

They decentralized the reception areas to make them more private, and the areas where the staff do their work are now behind the scenes.

“We’re trying to keep those areas, the patient areas, as quiet and comforting and as peaceful as possible to kind of promote that healing environment,” Siegling said.

The current construction is a continuation of an overall process of serving patients, he said.

“When we opened our specialty clinic last October, the goal of that building was really the new services,” Siegling said. In recent years, they’ve added podiatry and urology, and want to add others in the future.

“This renovation of this primary care building, the focus is really on improving the services that we offer here. There are some nice upgrades in equipment, the new exam technology, new PT equipment, that sort of thing, but the focus is really on improving the existing services that we already have,” Siegling said.

“When all of this construction is complete on this health care campus, the residents of Brookings are gonna have access to health care facilities and health care that, in my opinion, would rival those in any larger city in the state,” Siegling said.

Contact Jodelle Greiner at jgreiner@brookingsregister.com.