AKUH

Re-imagining the Pediatric Clinic Experience

Services

Service Design

Industry

Healthcare

Humanizing the Hospital Visit

Aga Khan University Hospital, a leading healthcare institute in Pakistan, wanted to deliver a hospital visit experience at par with healthcare quality by focusing on space design, humane service delivery, and a welcoming environment that made the experience enjoyable and less daunting for young patients and their attendants.

Our Role

Designist was engaged to design a service and space that responded to all key stakeholders—patients, caregivers, and providers—through a more intentional and human-centered approach.

Breaking down the experience

We set out to understand the existing challenges by mapping the current service ecosystem across three user groups, including Patients and Attendants, Doctors and Support staff.

The research, including on-ground observations, interviews, and space mapping brought to light as many limitations for the staff as there were reservations of Attendants. The service delivery in this case was understood in the context of operational efficiency as well as emotional caregiving. Some emerging areas of focus were

- Communication and journey management to enable Attendants to plan for the visit and during the visit

- Spaces not suitable to provide a safe or welcoming environment for their purpose or to engage young patients

Design Interventions

The design interventions aimed to make the clinic experience more intuitive, comforting, and efficient for everyone involved. By rethinking how people move through space, interact with services, and feel at different moments of their visit, we introduced changes that balanced operational efficiency with emotional care. The focus was on reducing friction, easing anxiety, and creating an environment that supports both medical treatment and human connection.

The Outcome

The redesigned outpatient clinic experience was about people, space, time, and the emotional states we carry through all of them. By rethinking the clinic experience as a service, we created a model where each user—child, parent, doctor, or staff member—felt seen and supported.

The redesigned clinic was integrated into the design considerations for the new AKU Child Health wing to become a healthcare space that doesn’t just heal but also comforts.
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