Placing Users at the Center: Evaluating Exam Room Design for Improved User Experience

Area of Science:

• Healthcare Design Research
• Human Factors in Medicine
• Architectural Psychology

Background:

• Primary care exam rooms are critical for patient-provider interaction but lack rigorous design evaluation metrics.
• Current exam room designs often fail to adequately support the diverse needs of all users, impacting experiences and outcomes.
• Improved design evaluation is essential for enhancing healthcare delivery and patient satisfaction.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop quantifiable criteria and spatial metrics for assessing primary care exam room design affordances.
• To evaluate how exam room layouts support the functional needs of providers, patients, and care partners.
• To provide tools for informed decision-making during the early stages of healthcare facility design.

Main Methods:

• Functional Scenario (FS) analysis was employed to evaluate nine primary care exam rooms.
• User needs were identified for three key groups: providers, patients, and care partners.
• Spatial metrics were developed to quantify the design's support for identified functional scenarios.

Main Results:

• Eleven functional scenarios (FSs) were defined: three for providers, five for patients, and three for care partners.
• The analysis revealed specific design strategies that can enhance user experiences within exam rooms.
• Quantifiable data on design affordances for multiple stakeholders were generated.

Conclusions:

• The study quantitatively measured the design affordances of primary care exam rooms for various users.
• The developed criteria and metrics offer new design guidance for optimizing user experiences.
• This research aims to foster a better understanding of user perspectives in healthcare space design.