VCH Medical Staff
8 months embedded at Vancouver Coastal Health — e-learning modules, photography, brand campaigns, and a full UX-led redesign of a portal serving 3,600+ physicians, nurses, and healthcare professionals.
This engagement had two distinct parts: first, the VCH Design Department — where I produced brand-consistent assets across photography, videography, e-learning, and print collateral. Second, a UX research and redesign campaign for the VCH Medical Staff website — a portal that was structurally broken and failing the 3,600+ professionals who depended on it daily. I led both.
Design Department
Photography, videography, logo design, e-learning modules, print collateral, and branded templates across Adobe Creative Suite and Articulate Storyline.
Website Redesign
End-to-end UX campaign — research, design system implementation, WCAG-compliant hi-fi prototypes, and stakeholder engagement across every VCH Community of Care.
Role
UX Lead & Designer, Creative Producer
Duration
8 Months (Co-op)
Users
3,600+ Physicians, Nurses & Healthcare Professionals
Tools
Figma, Articulate Storyline, Adobe Creative Suite, Miro, Notion
VCH Design Department
My first placement at VCH was in the Design team — where I wore every creative hat available. Photography, e-learning modules, brand campaigns, print collateral. The bar for craft was high and the brief was always tight.
Creative Production
Photography, Video & Brand Assets
I executed on-location photography and videography across VCH sites — capturing clinical programs, team environments, and institutional campaigns. All post-production ran through Adobe Lightroom and Premiere Pro. Alongside the lens work, I designed logo systems and branded templates for leadership and clinical teams, ensuring visual consistency across every deliverable.
On-location setup — Sony mirrorless on gimbal, VCH Design Department
E-Learning
Clinical Education Modules Built for Real Use
Two fully interactive modules built in Articulate Storyline — each with distinct clinical requirements, different audiences, and very different emotional contexts.
Palliative Care — Nursing Education
An interactive e-learning module for VCH nurses covering the current state of palliative care in Canada, clinical frameworks, and patient communication. Designed to be warm and accessible — the earthy palette was a deliberate departure from clinical harshness. Responsive across desktop and mobile.
Desktop landing + interactive content slide
Epilepsy Clinic — Room Finder
A mobile-first module for the Epilepsy Clinic at Vancouver General Hospital. The Room Finder feature gives patients maps, step-by-step guides, and a 360° video walkthrough of the Seizure Unit — translating a complex wayfinding brief into something a first-time visitor could actually follow.
Mobile module — Epilepsy Clinic, VGH
The Website Was Failing 3,600 People
The existing VCH Medical Staff website was a child site of the main VCH portal — never designed with medical professionals in mind. Information was buried. Navigation was unclear. The site didn't map to how doctors and nurses actually think about their careers. That was the brief: fix all of it.
The Brief (Verbatim)
"Medical Staff is a child site of the Vancouver Coastal Health website. It will be redesigned in order to create a meaningful website for all medical staff from all Communities of Care that offers information for all phases of their career, supports developmental goals, and is easy to navigate."
— VCH Project Brief
Who It Needed to Serve
New sitemap — IA restructured around career phases & Communities of Care
The Approach: Research at Scale
You can't redesign a portal for 3,600 people based on assumptions. The engagement strategy was built to reach as many of them as possible — across departments, career stages, and all Communities of Care.
Engagement Strategy
Two Phases, Six Methods
I proposed the Stanford Design Thinking Process as the project framework and the RASCI matrix for cross-functional accountability — keeping a team spread across departments aligned on responsibilities. Using Notion as a shared project hub, we executed a two-phase research campaign.
Electronic, paper & digital poster variants — pre-press ready, deployed across VCH doctor lounges
Poster design iterations — colour, layout, and format variations before final production
The live campaign page is still up — medicalstaff.vch.ca. Scroll to the bottom to see the survey posters in context.
Strategic Choices
Franchise Design System + WCAG Compliance
I activated and extended the VCH franchise design system using Figma Variables — defining tokens for colour, typography, spacing, and interactive states across all channels. Primary brand colour: Harbour Teal (#006271), desaturated to WCAG 2.1 AA compliance.
Designing for healthcare professionals under time pressure meant accessibility wasn't optional — it was embedded into every component, template, and style guide from day one.
Design system tokens (left) + Figma Variables implementation (right)
Active Figma canvas — MSPE documents, design system, and medical staff working files
Stakeholder Alignment
Collaborative Design in Figma & the MSPE Sub-Brand
Design decisions were made in real-time with senior designers and project leads directly in Figma — reviewing prototypes, aligning content hierarchy, resolving brand questions together before production. No handoff friction.
A key outcome from stakeholder sessions was the MSPE Leader's Guide — a sub-brand document I designed for the Medical Staff Practice Enhancement program, co-branded with Providence Health Care. Produced for both print and digital, it established consistent visual language and brand standards for department heads across VCH.
Real-time collaborative Figma session — iterating on prototypes with the team
MSPE Leader's Guide — co-branded VCH & Providence Health Care document
The Final Design — Physician Led Quality Improvement
The primary deliverable was the PLQI (Physician Led Quality Improvement) section — a complete overhaul of the page housing education workshops, collaboration opportunities, course levels, and downloadable resources for doctors across VCH and Providence Health Care. Built on the new design system: teal-forward navigation, clear content hierarchy, responsive card-based layouts.
PLQI — Education & Workshop page with Introductory and Advanced course cards
PLQI — Resources page with downloadable documents and external links
8 Months. Two Departments. Real Stakes.
This wasn't a student project. These e-learning modules went live for clinical staff. These posters went up in doctor lounges. These prototypes were reviewed by senior designers at a major health authority. The standard was professional from day one.
"The past eight months may have been hectic, but it was a journey of growth. The experiences accumulated here will definitely help speed up the process on future projects."
Healthcare Professionals Reached
The redesigned portal serves physicians, nurse practitioners, midwives, dentists, and medical administrators across all VCH Communities of Care.
Research Methods Deployed
Focus groups, surveys, interviews, poster campaigns, automated scheduling, and content audits — a full multi-channel engagement strategy to ensure decisions were grounded in real data.
Live E-Learning Modules
Palliative Care and Epilepsy Clinic Room Finder — both built in Articulate Storyline, responsive across devices, and deployed to clinical staff across VCH.
WCAG 2.1 Compliance
Every colour, every component — accessibility built into the design system from day one, not retrofitted. The design system token architecture enforced compliance across all deliverables.
Life Between Deliverables
Days at VCH
Eight months of real work, real people, and a city that became home. The moments that don't make it into case studies but shape everything about how you work.
View from the new office
Vancouver skyline from VCH HQ, BC Place in frame
First day badge
Drip selfies
Coffee walks with colleagues
Halloween at VCH
Caffeine dependent
On-location photoshoots
Producing clinical and campaign photography across VCH sites
Walks in Vancouver
First gift from first paycheck