1. Background
A core objective of D-tree's pediatric pneumonia intervention in Zanzibar is to improve the experience of caregivers navigating the health system on behalf of their children. Understanding caregiver perspectives — including barriers to care-seeking, experiences with referral systems, trust in health providers, and satisfaction with care — is essential to designing an intervention that not only improves health outcomes but does so in a way that is responsive, respectful, and accessible.
D-tree is seeking a patient experience expert to lead human-centered design work with caregivers — understanding their current experience navigating pneumonia care, identifying where it falls short, and collaborating with D-tree to design caregiver-facing interactions, workflows, and communication that meaningfully improve upon the status quo. D-tree will lead the final translation of design insights into digital tools, protocols, and training content.
2. Objective
To provide expertise in caregiver experience research and human-centered design, generating the insights D-tree needs to design caregiver-responsive components of the intervention. This includes documenting the current care experience, identifying priority gaps to resolve, and collaboratively designing what improved caregiver interactions should look like at each point of the care journey — so that the intervention's design choices are grounded in caregiver perspectives and clearly linked to a better experience.
3. What We Need From the Patient Experience Expert
The patient experience expert provides specialized patient-centered research and design skills.
A. Measurement Approach
Identify how patient experience should be measured, both for this design work and in anticipation of an external evaluation.
- What validated or adaptable tools exist for measuring patient/caregiver experience in LMIC primary care and community health settings? What dimensions do they typically measure (e.g., satisfaction, perceived quality of communication, ease of navigation, trust, wait times, respectful treatment, continuity of care)? Which are most relevant to a community-to-facility-to-district hospital care continuum?
- Which dimensions are most important given the intervention's focus on coordination and continuity across CHW and facility levels?
- How do we ensure that patient experience measures capture meaningful variation and are not subject to social desirability bias, particularly in a context where caregivers may be reluctant to criticize health workers?
B. Understanding the Current Caregiver Experience
Document the current state of the caregiver experience in navigating pediatric pneumonia care in Zanzibar. This is not a formal baseline — the evaluation partner will conduct that — but a design-oriented assessment that captures how caregivers currently experience the system, where the biggest pain points are, and what matters most to them. The findings should be documented clearly enough to show how each proposed design choice addresses a specific gap in the current experience and why it should lead to a measurable improvement.
- What are the key barriers and facilitators that caregivers face when seeking, accessing, and completing care in the current system?
- What is the caregiver experience of the referral process — from community-level assessment through facility or district hospital visit and follow-up? Where are the main friction points?
- Beyond referral, what do caregivers experience as gaps in coordinated care as they move between CHWs and facility providers? Do caregivers feel that different providers are working together and building on each other's work — or does the experience feel fragmented, repetitive, or contradictory?
- What type of communication from health workers at each point of care — CHW assessment, referral, facility visit, and post-facility follow-up — would make the experience feel seamless and connected? What information gaps or moments of having to "start over" are most frustrating?
- After a child is seen at a facility, what follow-up at home would be most helpful? What do caregivers need in terms of information, reassurance, monitoring support, or guidance on danger signs? What feels supportive vs. intrusive?
- How do caregivers perceive and trust CHWs vs. facility-based providers? How does this affect care-seeking behavior and adherence?
- Are there specific cultural, gender, or socioeconomic factors in the Zanzibar context that shape the caregiver experience?
- What does a "good" experience look like from the caregiver's perspective?
C. Designing Improved Caregiver Interactions and Workflows
Working collaboratively with D-tree, use the findings from Section B to practically design what better caregiver-facing interactions should look like at each point of the care journey. The goal is to move from "here's what's broken" to "here's what we'd design instead and why it would be better."
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For each priority gap identified, what should the improved caregiver interaction look like in practice? For example:
- What should a CHW say (and how) when explaining a referral — what information, in what format, with what tone?
- What should happen when a caregiver arrives at a facility with a referred child — how should the handoff feel from the caregiver's perspective?
- What should the facility provider communicate to the caregiver about diagnosis, treatment, and next steps — and how should this connect back to the CHW?
- What should the CHW's follow-up visit look and feel like after a facility visit — what does the caregiver need at that point?
- Where should caregiver-facing communication and counseling be standardized (e.g., scripts, visual aids, key messages) vs. left flexible for health workers to adapt?
- What feedback mechanisms could allow caregivers to report on their experience, and are these feasible in the Zanzibar context?
- How should the proposed design choices be documented to make the link between current gaps and proposed improvements clear and traceable — for D-tree's internal design process, for the evaluation, and for the investment case?
D. Alignment with Evaluation Design
The patient experience expert is not expected to design the evaluation methodology. A separate evaluation partner will be engaged to lead that work. However, the expert should be available to advise and align with the evaluation team, particularly on:
- Which patient experience measurement tools and frameworks are most appropriate for the Zanzibar context, and how they could be adapted for use in a formal evaluation baseline and endline
- What qualitative methods are most appropriate for capturing the depth of caregiver experience within an evaluation (e.g., in-depth interviews, journey mapping, photo-voice) and recommended sampling strategies
- How the findings from this design work can inform the evaluation team's approach — including which dimensions showed the most variation and where the intervention is most likely to demonstrate measurable change
- How patient experience measures should be integrated alongside health outcome and cost-effectiveness measures in the overall evaluation framework
4. Deliverables
- Recommended patient experience measurement approach — including selected/adapted tools, priority dimensions, and guidance on mitigating social desirability bias — for use in both the design work and as input to the evaluation team
- Current state documentation — a clear picture of how caregivers currently experience pediatric pneumonia care in Zanzibar, where the biggest gaps are, and what matters most to them
- Proposed caregiver interaction designs for each key point of the care journey (CHW assessment, referral, facility visit, follow-up), with a clear link from each current gap to the proposed improvement and rationale for why it should lead to a better experience
- Participation in up to 3 working sessions with D-tree, including at least one joint session with the clinical expert to align caregiver-reported gaps with clinical care pathway design
- Availability to advise and align with the evaluation team on patient experience measurement tools, qualitative methods, and how findings should inform the evaluation design
5. Expert Profile
- Advanced degree in public health, medical anthropology, health services research, social science, or related field
- Demonstrated experience designing and conducting patient/caregiver experience research in LMIC health settings
- Expertise in qualitative and mixed-methods research approaches, including participatory methods
- Familiarity with patient experience measurement frameworks and validated tools applicable to primary care and community health
- Experience working in maternal, neonatal, or child health programming preferred
- Experience in Zanzibar or similar contexts preferred; Swahili language skills required
6. Level of Effort and Timeline
Estimated 20 days from April–June 2026. Engagement will include remote consultations, field-based research and design work in Zanzibar (approximately 5–7 days), and documentation/report writing.
7. Budget Requirements
The consultant will submit a proposed budget which will be reviewed and approved by D-tree. The consultant's proposed budget and costs will be subject to applicable taxes as stipulated by Tanzania law. The total cost submitted by the consultant should be inclusive of VAT. All budget amounts must be quoted in Tanzanian Shillings (TZS). For the successful offeror, all invoices submitted by the consultant must also be quoted in Tanzanian Shillings (TZS), and all payments will be made in Tanzanian Shillings (TZS).
8. Application
To apply for this role, please click the link <Here- Add Link> and submit your resume and a cover letter.Please note that by applying to this position, you consent to your name being checked against a terrorist watch list prior to an offer of employment. Deadline for submitting applications: April 1, 2026
