sati medical blog

My office workflow is probably unlike most other doctors.  When a patient comes in the front door a door chime notifies me and then I come out to greet them in the “waiting room.”  (As my patients rarely have to wait, I prefer to think of my “waiting room” as a foyer rather than a traditional doctor’s office waiting room.)

Once inside, patients then come in to my office where we will spend the bulk of our time during the encounter.  If there are forms to be completed, my patients fill them out here while I start to set them in my EMR system.  If there are labs or notes to be reviewed, I swing my computer monitor over and we do this together.  I do the majority of my history taking, explaining and educating, as well as assessment and planning with my patients while sitting at my office desk.  

When it’s time to do an exam, we walk to my adjoining exam room and complete the exam there.  If patients are here for acupuncture treatment, I have an additional room for that across the hall.

While I love my workflow and would never go back to the “hamster wheel” way, there is a serious downside.  Instead of jumping around from exam room to exam room, standing around filling out charts in the hallway, and running around like a chicken with its head cut off throughout the office like I use to do, I now spend upwards of 75% of my workday at my desk sitting.  Invariably, at the end of the day I would find myself with an achy back, shoulders, and neck not to mention feeling lethargic and energy depleted.

Enter, the standing desk.  I have been reading about these for some time but finally took the plunge a few weeks back after finding a solution from http://heightadjustableworktable.com/ that wasn’t too expensive and didn’t require me to completely remodel my office setup and decor.  Essentially a motorized desk frame (which requires fairly minimal self-install), I was able to simply remove and swap out my old desk frame while retaining my desk top.

Now, a push of a button and 10 seconds later I go from sitting to standing and vice versa.  I find meeting with patients while standing a bit awkward (maybe this will change), so we still sit during those times.  But the rest of the day when I’m alone completing charts, reviewing labs and messages, and doing the rest of the grunt work of medicine I now stand.

I’ll leave it to others to sell you the health and productivity benefits of standing instead of sitting while working.  Just a brief endorsement: I do feel better—and isn’t that what wellness is ultimately about?  To my colleagues: while I still dislike and procrastinate when it comes to charting, I do finish them a little bit faster now.