Medical imaging clinic puts premium on patient experience

CALGARY – Mayfair Diagnostics’ newest medical imaging clinic in Coventry Hills, Alta., is being described as the clinic of the future because of the way it was designed. To achieve this, Mayfair Diagnostics partnered with one of the world’s leading customer experience agencies, C Space, to design the clinic using principles of co-creation.

“Rather than attempting to ‘create an imaging clinic that provides outstanding patient experiences’, we flipped the objective to ‘turn an outstanding patient experience into an imaging clinic’,” said David Franke (pictured), innovation director of C Space.

Everything, from the clinic’s physical space to patient-employee interactions, was designed with the patient in mind. For instance, the clinic features a clinic host and clinic guide, who work together to ensure a patient’s entire experience within the clinic is seamless.

All clinic employees have received as much customer experience training as they have technical training. The patient lounge offers Wi-Fi and charging stations, refreshments, soft lighting and comfortable furniture. The Knowledge Bar is a private space where patients can meet with radiologists and technologists to provide clarity about their results, options and next steps.

Simply put, co-creation is all about collaborating and joint problem solving with key stakeholders. It is regularly used by the retail and hospitality industries, and Mayfair Diagnostics wanted to bring that customer-focused approach to patient care – adding empathy to an ordinarily technical medical experience.

“We wanted to find out what truly matters to our patients,” said Jackie McAtee, vice president of brand and customer experience at Mayfair. “We are often part of our patients’ lives at times of uncertainty, where feelings of fear and anxiety are not uncommon. We wanted to replace those emotions with feelings of clarity and control.”

The co-creation process involved intensive research using surveys, workshops and interviews with key stakeholders, including patients, employees, health care professionals and hospitality experts.

The result is a medical imaging clinic, which combines a re-imagined patient experience, state-of-the-art technology and world-class medical expertise.

In keeping with Mayfair Diagnostics’ reputation as a leader in medical imaging, the clinic houses several ultrasound rooms, one mammography room, one bone densitometry room and one X-ray room. Patients also have access to tomosynthesis – a 3D breast scan that allows for greater accuracy in the detection of suspected tumours and masses, which means fewer callbacks and less anxiety for the patient.

The opening of the Coventry Hills clinic is the first step towards Mayfair Diagnostics’ ultimate vision: to transform people’s experiences around medical imaging. Mayfair Diagnostics will apply the ‘co-creation’ approach to all of its other clinics over time.

About Mayfair Diagnostics

Headquartered in Calgary, Alberta, Mayfair is owned and operated by a group of more than 46 practicing radiologists. In addition to the broad suite of medical imaging services we offer at our 12 community based clinics in Calgary, AB, and one in Regina, SK, we are also pleased to provide patients with the opportunity to access private services at our Mayfair Place and Regina Centre Crossing locations. We are proud of the fact that we serve more than 700,000 patients each year and provide more than 90,000 teleradiology interpretations to rural and remote communities, including hospitals in Saskatchewan, Alberta, the North West Territories, and the Yukon. Mayfair Diagnostics is the official medical imaging provider to the Calgary Flames, Calgary Hitmen, Calgary Stampeders and the Calgary Roughnecks.