- Healthcare lobbies are replacing registration desks with concierge-style kiosks and mobile podiums to meet patient expectations.
- Sensory-conscious zones give all patients, including neurodiverse visitors, meaningful choice in how they wait.
- Lobbies now function as brand touchpoints and clinical extensions, with amenities like cafes and light-filled atriums that ease stress and build loyalty.
The healthcare lobby is undergoing a transformation. Once defined primarily by a large registration desk and rows of waiting chairs, today’s healthcare lobby is increasingly viewed as a strategic space that shapes first impressions, supports wellness, reinforces brand identity, and improves the patient experience.
Driven by rising consumer expectations, advances in digital technology, and growing recognition of the role environment plays in health outcomes, healthcare organizations are rethinking how patients, families, and visitors arrive, wait, and interact within facilities.
For architects and interior designers, the result is a new set of priorities centered on flexibility, choice, hospitality, and holistic care.
“There’s a lot more awareness about the experiential, emotional aspect of healthcare spaces, and the lobby is primed for setting that tone for the rest of the building,” says Riley Zollars, associate principal and senior interior designer at DesignGroup (Columbus, Ohio).
Rise of technology and concierge-style arrival
One of the most visible signs of this shift is the move away from the traditional registration desk. Taking cues from hospitality environments, many healthcare organizations are adopting concierge-style arrival experiences that provide patients with greater autonomy and flexibility.
The change is evident at Rady Children’s Health Orange County’s new 9-story outpatient tower in Orange County, Calif., which opened in 2025 without a registration desk. Instead, patients and families can use self-check-in kiosks.
Many patients increasingly anticipate a similar digital convenience that they encounter at hotels, airports, and restaurants, says Bronwyn Stackleather, project director in the planning, design, and construction department at Rady Children’s Health (Orange County). “They expect that same type of experience as they move through other types of environments in their lives, and healthcare shouldn’t be an exception.”
At the same time, healthcare organizations recognize that not all patients are comfortable navigating a digital experience.
With that in mind, many facilities provide staff support for those who may need assistance because of age, language barriers, or experience with technology. For example, at Rady Children’s, staff are stationed at moveable concierge podiums near the lobby entrance and other key touchpoints, including self-check-in kiosks, to guide patients and visitors.
Space considerations in healthcare lobby design
Replacing the traditionally large reception desk with smaller and mobile options also helps to open the lobby space and provides future flexibility, says Hilary Thomas-Herd, associate vice president and senior interior designer at CannonDesign (Arlington, Texas), which served as architect on the Rady Children’s tower project.
“As technology changes over time, clients want to be able to respond to those changes easily and effectively,” she says. Movable elements also allow facilities to reconfigure operations without costly renovations, whether that means expanding self-check-in, relocating staff support points, or accommodating new technologies.
Healthcare organizations also increasingly view the lobby as a reflection of their brand and a place to make a positive first and lasting impression on patients and visitors.
“The rise in consumerism has led patients to compare their options for healthcare providers and environments as they would a restaurant or hotel,” says Andrea Kingsbury, creative director of interior design at E4H Environments for Health Architecture (Charlotte, N.C.). “The lobby often serves as one’s first impression of not only the healthcare system but also of the care they will receive.”
As a result, owners are investing more in signature lobby spaces, blending technology and human connection to communicate those values. And designers are being given more license to create a “wow” factor in these spaces.
At the Jack & Sheryl Morris Cancer Center in New Brunswick, N.J., HOK (New York) designed the 4-story lobby as an atrium that serves both experiential and operational goals. “It’s light-filled and bright and has this beautiful spiral staircase that goes up. Patients can see where they’re going, and that takes some of the stress off,” says Christine Vandover, senior project interior designer at HOK.
Another HOK project, Michigan Medicine’s D. Dan and Betty Kahn Health Care Pavilion in Ann Arbor, Mich., features a fireplace in the lobby, which provides visual interest and makes the space feel more inviting, Vandover says. “Seeing the light flicker from the fireplace relaxes people, and makes them feel warm and secure,” she says.
Reimagining the role of waiting spaces in lobby design
Healthcare facilities are rethinking the role of waiting spaces in lobby design, too. Rather than assigning patients to a single, centralized waiting room, they’re offering a variety of environments where patients and families can choose how to spend their time.
Aiko Tanabe, senior interior designer and senior associate at Perkins&Will (New York), says she’s seeing providers create different pockets of seating and branding them as zones such as “library” and “den” to convey comfort and combat perceptions of healthcare waiting rooms as stressful environments.
As awareness of neurodiversity grows, lobby design is also becoming more intentional about sensory experience. Project teams are creating zones within these environments to help visitors manage stimulation levels or find a positive distraction to reduce stress.
“Large, undefined spaces amplify sound and can be overwhelming to sensory-sensitive visitors,” says Kingsbury. “Breaking lobby spaces into smaller zones contains and redirects sound, giving visitors a choice of stimulation level.”
Acoustic ceiling baffles and sound-dampening panels incorporated into pendulum lighting fixtures, as well as decorative finishes such as hanging art installations, are being used to support quieter environments.
Adjustable lighting and muted color palettes used in furnishings, walls, and artwork can also subconsciously convey the need for conversations to be at a lower volume in these spaces, Kingsbury adds.
Lobbies as amenity-rich environments
Lobby design is also becoming more accommodating to families and visitors, who are viewed as extensions of the care team, which in turn is driving demand for more robust amenity offerings. “You’ve got to provide a space where multiple family members and visitors can come and be a part of that healthcare journey,” Stackleather says.
Cafés, educational programming, wellness resources, and flexible gathering areas are becoming common features in some facilities.
At the Jack & Sheryl Morris Cancer Center, for example, a test kitchen integrated into the lobby provides space for educational programming on healthy meal preparation for patients and families.
The trend is especially significant as healthcare services continue to consolidate into outpatient hubs and ambulatory centers. Patients often spend several hours on-site seeing multiple providers, creating new demands for comfort, convenience, and support.
“Because of that, patients might be there for longer, with wait times between various appointments,” Stackleather says. Looking at lobby design through that lens, she adds, features such as cafés and quiet reading nooks become essential to creating comfortable environments where patients and visitors can move around and choose how to pass the time.
Additionally, healthcare providers are looking for their facilities “to be more than just a place people go when they’re sick,” says DesignGroup’s Zollars. Dining and educational programs hosted in the lobby are a way to bring in the community and create brand loyalty, enticing visitors to return as patients when care needs arise.
First and lasting impressions of patient care
As healthcare systems continue prioritizing patient-centered care, the lobby is emerging as both a clinical and experiential asset—one that increasingly shapes how patients perceive, navigate, and remember their healthcare journey. “It’s become an extension of the exam rooms, as patients are already starting to receive mental and well care from the minute they’ve entered the space,” says Stackleather.
Robert McCune is senior editor of Healthcare Design and can be reached at [email protected].
