Thinking about interior design for your acupuncture clinic, you might get excited or overwhelmed. This blog shares five big picture tips, which help you reflect and plan, before diving to all nitty gritty details. 

Patient Centric 

The first tip is to put your patients first. 

Is the waiting room and clinic comfortable for your patients?  

Does the treatment room provide enough privacy?

Who are your patients? 

Do you focus on women, children, athletes, or the general public?

Before investing in furniture, flooring, and decoration, think about your patients first. 

Who are they?

What do they like? 

How would you want them to feel?

For example, if you focus on women’s fertility, your patients will be females who plan to get pregnant. They might already experience a lot of anxiety and uneasiness trying everything to get pregnant, but not yet get results. 

They would need a soothing and comforting environment where you will accompany them in traditional chinese medicine and acupuncture journey to have a child.

These women need knowledge to prepare themselves for this journey and you will be the guide for them. 

What would an environment be like?  Put your patients first. Everything else will be easier to plan through. 

Easy to Clean

The second tip is for all acupuncturists and Traditional Chinese Medicine practitioners. After thinking for your patients, the next is for yourself. My number one tip is easy to clean. 

You don’t want another “job” of cleaning after treating your patients and running an acupuncture clinic. Thus, choosing materials which are easy to clean is extremely important. 

You might have a dream floor. At the same time, consider the practical side of how easy to clean the floor is very important. 

Vinyl flooring might be the easiest to clean and maintain. Carpet flooring  might provide the warm feeling you are looking for. Choosing the ones that can stand high traffic and constant cleaning would be important. 

The same rule of easy to clean applies to decoration as well. Before putting anything into your clinic, think about how often you would need to clean to make the deco looks great. 

Does it need dusting very often? 

Do you put a houseplant which requires sun and watering regularly? 

For all aspects of your clinic design, think of cleaning. If you choose materials which are low maintenance, that would save you a lot of time and energy down the road.  

Barrier Free

Barrier free is for you and your patients. 

First about you, the acupuncturist and the traditional Chinese medicine practitioners. When you treat patients, you have a certain procedure to go through. 

When talking to patients, do you take notes with a computer? With a notepad? 

How do you file patient information? 

When taking a pulse, do you use a diagnosis pillow? 

Where to put the pillow so you can take pulse naturally? 

Where will your notes go so you can quickly jot down thoughts and ideas?

Where do you stock your needles? 

How do you handle your used needles? 

For your patients, do you have a place for them to change clothes? 

Or will they utilize the bathroom as a place to change?

Think through your process and procedure first. Then consider what interior design will go with your flow. 

Visual Pleasing 

When people think about interior design, visual pleasing usually comes first. Here it is the fourth of my tips. 

After putting your patients, cleanness, and barrier free first, now it is time to consider what looks great for you. 

Yes, I mean you, the acupuncturist and traditional Chinese medicine practitioner. Since this is your workplace and your practice, you are the center of what visual pleasing is. 

What style do you like?  

Minimalist 

Modern

Earthy

Botanical

Chinese inspired

Whimsical 

Or you simply don’t know yet. 

It is not a problem. Go ahead, use a few of the keywords above and an acupuncture treatment room to search on Pinterest. 

Or you can use chiropractic, spa, massage, clinic, etc as part of the keywords to find your inspiration. 

Last reminder of this tip. A picture on Pinterest is just a picture and an inspiration. Don’t forget to make it your own. 

You need to feel comfortable in the environment to practice and to treat your patients. 

If picture perfect is not you, don’t. 

Cleanness is a must. Visually stunning is not. 

Budget First

Last tip is to allot a budget for your interior design before any purchase.  What are the items you would need to purchase? Do you have some big ticket items such as furniture or flooring that you need to take care of first? 

Or your treatment room covers all basics and you just need to add some personal flair to it. 

When you have different needs, you will have a different budget. 

Nobody says you need to have the picture perfect treatment room so you will have a fully booked calendar.  

Make a list of everything you want. Take a hard look at what is a necessity and what is nice to have. Having a budget in mind will help you focus on the most important items first. 

Get your clinic up and running. 

After a period of time practicing, you might have different needs and wants. 

Then, you can go through the tips. Patient first, cleanness, flow, visual, and budget. Plan another round of renewing your acupuncture practice.