Humanising The Clinic
Design Research, Methodology Design, Facilitator
Download "Humanising The Clinic" publication here to read the full breakdown of my project
How can clinical environments improve patient-centred care while responding to the lived realities of those who sustain them? This co-creation research project reveals how patient experience and clinic workflows are interconnected, shaped through everyday movement, interaction, and care. Through ethnographic and co-design research, it surfaced the invisible labour carried out by staff, especially Patient Care Associates (PCAs). A co-design toolkit was developed to translate these lived experiences into visual, spatial data-creating a shared language between designers and non-designers. By making hidden workflows visible, the project positions staff as co-designers, reframing healthcare design as an ongoing, participatory process.
Through ethnographic fieldwork, participatory research sessions and co-design sessions, it was revealed that behind visible operations are improvised decisions and constant communication adjustments made by staff, particularly by the Patient Care Associates (PCAs). These activities surfaces the invisible labour of PCAs by externalising the physical and cognitive demands of their work, giving form to often overlooked labour. It creates a shared language bridging experience, labour and spatial design, positioning those with an intimate understanding of the system as co-authors in its reconfiguration instead of subjects of a study.
This project focuses on a physical co-design toolkit designed to bridge the gap between non-designers' lived experiences and designers' spatial knowledge, creating a shared language between them. The toolkit is designed to be intuitive and structured so that it is accessible to both non-designers and designers. It uses simple tactile materials and measurement tools to combine the precision of design thinking for designers with accessibility for non-designers, grounding abstract design conversations with spatial representation.
Ultimately, Humanising the Clinic reframes design as participatory, creating tools that enable lived experiences, hidden workflows and overlooked perspectives to become visible, discussable and collaboratively reshaped. It positions healthcare design not as the creation of fixed solutions, but as an ongoing process of collective understanding, adaptation and care, where more empathetic clinical environments are continuously shaped by the people who sustain them and not just for them.