Towards Patient-oriented Design: A Case of the Egyptian Private Outpatient Clinics

Abstract

In this paper, outpatient clinics’ systems are addressed and their common issues were discussed. As a case study, the private clinics in Egypt are used, and a designed service solution was synthesized. In the case study, the system and application was mainly physician-oriented rather than patient-oriented. With such physician-oriented systems alongside with the current design approaches, waiting times and appointment scheduling are two critical issues. Therefore, in this study, a design thinking approach was implemented to address these design problems for patients and clinic staffs. Based on that analysis, a design application solution called “YourClinic” was developed to support online booking and consultation. This study provides design features and functions to improve the quality of communication between patients and clinic staffs, reduce waiting time, and develop schedules for patients and staffs in order to move towards a patient-oriented clinic service.