Designing a Child-, Family-, and Healthcare Provider-Centered Procedure Room in a Tertiary Care Children's Hospital

Area of Science:

• Pediatric healthcare design
• Human-centered design in medicine
• Patient experience in healthcare settings

Background:

• Medical procedures can induce significant pain and anxiety in children and their families.
• Inadequately designed spaces can prolong procedures, necessitate sedation, and diminish the overall care experience.
• Involving healthcare providers (HCPs) and patients in co-designing medical environments enhances efficiency, safety, and psychological well-being.

Purpose of the Study:

• To co-design novel pediatric procedure room prototypes through collaborative efforts with children, their caregivers, and HCPs.
• To integrate patient and provider perspectives into the development of improved healthcare facility designs.
• To inform evidence-based recommendations for pediatric procedure room design.

Main Methods:

• Human-centered design methodology was employed.
• Data collection involved semi-structured interviews, field observations, and multidisciplinary design workshops.
• Content analysis was used to extract themes and formulate design recommendations.

Main Results:

• Patients, families, and HCPs identified key needs for procedure rooms.
• Essential elements include environmental control (lighting, temperature, sound), patient privacy, and integration of pain reduction strategies.
• Attention to the sensory environment (visual, tactile, auditory, olfactory), spatial organization, accessibility, and the patient journey are crucial.

Conclusions:

• Co-designing pediatric procedure rooms with end-users is achievable.
• This collaborative process can yield spaces that effectively support interventions to minimize pediatric procedural pain.
• The developed prototypes can enhance psychological, physical, and pharmacological approaches to pain management in children.