Mirebalais Hospital

Designing digital healthcare for and with the people of Haiti

My most meaningful project to date: co-creating a digital medical records system at Haiti's largest hospital, in collaboration with Partners in Health, OpenMRS, and ThoughtWorks. We designed for real constraints and real lives, helping frontline clinicians save time and, in some cases, lives.

Research & journey mapping

We started with empathy. I asked clinicians and support staff to walk us through patient journeys from check-in to diagnosis to medication, capturing critical moments, constraints, and stress points. These workshops grounded everything we did.

Patient journey map: complete care workflow from admission to discharge with pain points highlighted.

Prototyping & testing

Ideas were sketched and tested before any code was written. With frontend development skills, we moved quickly from mockups to live prototypes, validating with the team in Boston and testing with nurses in Mirebalais.

Before and after: Initial prototype vs. refined interface after user feedback.

I planned and led on-site usability testing directly at the hospital with real staff, some who had never used a computer before. We learned that keyboard shortcuts were faster than mouse clicks. We used icons, large touch targets, and simplified flows to reduce cognitive load. We role-played patient scenarios, documented insights in video, and iterated quickly.

Hospital testing: nurses using the system in the actual Mirebalais hospital setting.

Design system

To help the team scale and iterate efficiently, I created a live design system of reusable components where we could evaluate consistency and developers could copy code directly. This was an innovation at the time (we were designing in Fireworks!). This sped up delivery, ensured consistency, and made it easier for new contributors to join.

Outcome & legacy

• Clinicians worked more efficiently and confidently, even under high pressure
• The system was adopted in real patient care, helping save lives by surfacing key data faster
• Our design work influenced the core of OpenMRS and was later adopted in countries like Sierra Leone
• We proved that inclusive, localised design can create global impact

Global impact: OpenMRS system with our design improvements being used in healthcare facilities in India.