For neurodivergent children, the hospital visit is the hardest part. Not the diagnosis. The waiting.
Designed for the average patient
NIMHANS families wait roughly 2 hours across disconnected queues, re-explain medical history at every visit, and have no way to prepare a child for what is coming. Booking by phone takes 6 to 7 minutes. One late patient delays everyone that follows.
For most adults, this is frustrating but manageable. For a neurodivergent child in a crowded, noisy, unfamiliar space, not knowing when something will happen is enough to derail the whole day. The damage is done before the appointment begins.
"The child doesn't understand why they're waiting. They only know something overwhelming is about to happen and they don't know when."
· Parent interview, research phaseWhere the system was failing them
Interviews and a full journey map with families and staff surfaced the moments that made an already hard day harder.
How the slot model works
Instead of one long queue, the day is divided into time windows, A to F. Families book a slot in advance and arrive 15 minutes before their window. They check in on the app, get assigned one of four positions, and wait somewhere calm. The system handles the rest.
If someone is late, they move to an overflow slot and are seen within 45 minutes. Everyone else is unaffected.
The screen is the last thing to design
The app only works because the booking logic, records, and staff flows were redesigned alongside it. A better interface on a broken process is still a broken process.
The question I kept coming back to: how do you design for a child who can't tell you what they're feeling? The preparation features try to answer that, but it's territory worth pushing much further into.
"The system is not hostile. It was just never designed with this family in mind."
· Project notes