Transformation of a pediatric primary care waiting room: Creating a bridge to community resources

Introduction: Children and families living in poverty frequently encounter social risks that significantly affect their health and well-being. Physicians' near universal access to at-risk children and their parents presents opportunities to address social risks, but time constraints frequently interfere. We sought to redesign our waiting room to create a clinic-to-community bridge and evaluate the impact of that redesign on family-centered outcomes.

Methods: We conducted a pre-post study of a waiting room redesign at a large, academic pediatric primary care center. Design experts sought input about an optimal waiting room from families, community partners and medical providers. Family caregivers were surveyed before and after redesign regarding perceived availability of help with social needs and access to community resources, and hospitality and feelings of stress. Pre-post differences were assessed using the Chi square or Wilcoxon rank sum test.

Results: The key redesign concepts that emerged included linkages to community organizations, a welcoming environment, and positive distractions for children. A total of 313 caregiver surveys were completed (pre-160; post-153). Compared to pre-redesign, caregivers surveyed post-redesign were significantly more likely to perceive the waiting room as a place to obtain help connecting to community resources and find information about clinical and educational resources (both p 0.05). Families were also significantly more likely to report the waiting room as more welcoming and relaxing, with sufficient privacy and space (all p 0.05).

Discussion: Waiting rooms, typically a place of wasted time and space, can be redesigned to enhance families' engagement and connection to community resources.