Providing treatment for Children and Adolescents who are experiencing psychiatric crisis is at once challenging and rewarding. As designers, it breaks our hearts to see young children in desperate need of psychiatric attention and we are acutely aware of the toll this illness takes on their parents. Our goal is to support the providers by designing a space that is supportive of the healing that needs to take place there. It isn’t enough just to keep these patients safe from harm (as important as that is). It is essential that we create therapeutic environments which are carefully tuned to the needs of these age groups.
Pediatric Outpatient clinic
As designers, the most important thing we need to understand is our users. Pediatric outpatient services work differently than adult services. There are two important differences. The patients are kids and they bring parents with them!
Similar to the inpatient units, we need to be mindful of the playful nature of the patients; the importance of protecting children from inappropriate encounters; and the different needs of different age groups. The biggest difference in outpatient services though is in the role of the parent. The parent’s do more than just transport their child to the doctor’s office. They are the primary caregiver and have to reinforce and support the treatment modality during the intervening time before the next appointment. Whether, the pediatric patient is in danger of reaching a crisis, or is seeking support for ADHD, the parent’s role is critical.
What does that mean for design? Everything. When a therapist meets with a family, they may need to meet with the parent and child together and/or separately. Where does the parent wait while the therapist meets with the child? Parents are not going to be comfortable with “sending” their child towards the therapist’s office. They want to know that the child is in appropriate care. So the typical paradigm is for the therapist to come to the waiting room to retrieve the child (stopping to talk to the parents) and return them following the appointment (again talking to the parents). The extra time associated with these transitional tasks affects throughput and billability. There are design strategies that can help limit turnaround time to maximize efficiency.
Perhaps more importantly, where does the child wait while the therapist meets with the parent? Parents want their vulnerable children around trustworthy support, not other random parents in a waiting room. A pediatric outpatient clinic must have space available for children to wait under supervision while their parents meet with the therapist. This space should be divided according to age group and have appropriate activities that will occupy the child, but not for too long. The parent may be meeting with the therapist for a few minutes or for the whole session. After the appointment, parents usually need to get somewhere else and don’t have time to wait for their child to finish their video game!
