END-USER CENTRED PARTICIPATORY DESIGN FOR COMMUNITY–BASED HEALTHCARE ENVIRONMENTS IN CHINA

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The national healthcare system in China is currently experiencing significant reform, which aims to establish a more accessible, affordable and equitable healthcare service for the whole society. One of the long-term key tasks is set to transform the allocation of medical resources in urban areas from a “centralised” pattern to a “decentralised” one. It intends to improve the capacity of delivering primary care for urban residents. In this research, attention is paid to the social sustainability and design process of healthcare environments at a community level, since the design quality has a significant impact upon the provision and delivery of healthcare service while there is a lack of specific building regulations or standards that are tailored to inform or assess the design of community-based healthcare facilities in China. This research explores end-users’ satisfaction and the design strategies related to their needs. A “multi-strategy research” strategy is applied for the research framework, which consists of desktop research and field investigations. In the desktop research, the design strategies for healthcare environments are collected with relevant evidence from regulations and previous literature. A series of social studies are conducted for the field investigations, and finally, the responses of target groups in this research are cross-compared and analysed in order to shed an in-depth insight into end-users’ cognitive differences. Their preferences are used to identify the relative importance of design strategies that are related to end-users’ needs for community-based healthcare environments. It is found that a complete consensus on the needs of end-users cannot be reached for good healthcare environment design at a community level. Evidence-based design principles can improve the efficiency of knowledge exchange in the participatory design decision-making process. Information from building regulations is expected to be used as a communication platform for stakeholders with different knowledge levels. Based on the findings regarding end-users’ preferences for the design of community-based healthcare environments, the suggestions on improving the existing building regulations from a social perspective are raised. Furthermore, a design aided tool, End-user Centred Participatory Design for Community-based Healthcare Environments Version 1.0 (ECPD), is proposed, which can be employed in conjunction with GB/T 51153 currently, in order to improve the overall design quality and social sustainability of community-based healthcare environments in China.