Program Innovation
Redesigning Primary Health Care Centres
Health
IEC
Patient Experience
Client:
Selco Foundation, Doto, RC Architects & Social Innovation Studio collaborated to redesign the infrastructure & patient experience at Primary Health Centre(PHC) with a focus on maternal health. The effort centred on patient navigation, communication & overall experience. By addressing crowd management, streamlining information flow, and introducing intuitive signage, we introduced solutions that are inclusive, accessible, and easy to use.
Timeline: 3 months
Offerings
Crowd Management & Navigation
Experience Design
Information Design
Maternal & Childcare Experience
Maternal and childcare services at the PHC were initially fragmented, patients faced long waits, confusing navigation, and scattered information. Mothers and caregivers often left overwhelmed and under-informed.
We then applied Human-Centred Design and Behaviour Science principles to reimagine the PHC. The redesign now enables patients to navigate independently, improves their emotional journey, and ensures access to clear, actionable information.
What did we do?
Pillars we built the playbook on business fundamentals
We enabled patients to navigate the centre independently
Improved the emotional journey of children & their parents
Made information accessible, easy-to-use & engaging
Crowd Management & Signage
Challenge addressed:
The PHC lacked clear directions and communication cues, creating confusion during peak hours. Patients and caregivers often struggled to locate essential areas like food stalls, restrooms, and activity zones.
Solution Approach:
We observed key bottlenecks and mapped patient flows across the facility. Based on these insights, we introduced intuitive signage and navigation cues that were both functional and visually consistent with the organisation’s theme. Prototypes were then tested for clarity and visibility from different angles, ensuring smoother movement.
Experience Design
Challenge addressed:
The PHC experience felt fragmented, with no cohesive journey for patients (particularly infants), leading to confusion and reduced engagement with services.
Solution Approach:
Using empathy mapping and patient journey mapping, we identified emotional highs and lows across touchpoints. Based on these insights, we introduced themed zones, sensory cues, and smoother transitions to create a holistic and memorable experience for the patients.
Information Design
Challenge addressed:
Patients, especially mothers and caregivers, were not engaging with the IEC rack at the PHC. Brochures were scattered, poorly organised and often out of reach, causing critical maternal and child health information to be overlooked.
Solution Approach:
We redesigned the IEC rack to be clutter-free, colour-coded, and user-friendly, ensuring that information was accessible at a glance. Key materials were positioned at high impact touchpoints like the immunisation door and doctor’s room to reinforce messages when most relevant. Alongside, we introduced highly visual, action oriented posters tailored for low literacy audiences, clearly highlighting what mothers and patients needed to do.
Our Process
Immersion
Conducted primary research at all centres, engaging with staff, shadowing their daily routines, and observing challenges first-hand.
Explore and Identify
Mapped patient journeys with a focus on maternal and child health. It uncovered systemic pain points and opportunities for intervention.
Ideate and Co-create
Worked closely with Doto and centre teams to design easy-to-implement solutions. Ideas were refined by assessing operational feasibility and user comfort.
Pilot and Testing
Tested low-fidelity design prototypes with patients and doctors, iterating based on feedback to shape final, context-sensitive solutions.
Outcomes
Redesigned infrastructure and communication systems to make health information more engaging and the overall patient journey more dignified and efficient.
Provider Cognitive & Workload reduced
Crowd Management & Navigation resulted in reducing engagement with healthcare staff for navigation in the center
Enhanced Patient Experience
Improved the experience like IEC racks raising benchmark to private hospital standard
Increased engagement for health awareness
Our interventionss ensured people engaged with information that was important and easy-to-understand
What They Say About Us
This concept is new and very useful. The colour grading makes it easy for people to pick up the information they need. The signages and navigation have also made a big difference. Compared to our earlier boards, these are smoother, more appealing, and give people a better sense of understanding when moving around the centre.
Doctor
Senior PM
I came here with my daughter for her vaccination and had a really good experience. The hospital is looking very good and well-maintained, and the play area kept my daughter happily engaged. I really liked it here.
Satish, Patient
Senior PM
Tools and Frameworks we used
Behaviour science tools and frameworks help us understand how people think and act, reveal what drives
(or blocks) change, and design interventions that work in the real world.
Transtheoretical Model
We used the Transtheoretical Model to guide health communication for mothers and caregivers. This helped design stepwise nudges and support systems that matched patients’ readiness, making actions more likely to stick. We’ve also made a worksheet template to help you map the stages of change in your programs.
Get the Worksheet
The Nudge Theory & Stages of Change of Playbook
We applied Nudge Theory and the Stages of Change model to make health communication more actionable, designing cues, visual triggers, and stepwise engagement that guided mothers from awareness to behaviour adoption. We have put together these tools for you to use in a playbook.
Explore playbook 2.0
Got a wicked problem? We’re all ears.
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