As much as I'd like to take full credit, I must acknowledge that none of this would have been possible without the support and encouragement of the organization's leaders, who entrusted me with the responsibility of revamping our online presence. A huge shoutout goes to them for their guidance and trust.
That being said, let's delve into how I contributed to the transformation of LifebridgeHealth, a prominent player in Baltimore, Maryland's hospital medical corridor.
Initially hired as a digital marketer, with a strong emphasis on web development, I quickly noticed that our organization was lagging behind competitors like MedStar and John Hopkins. Recognizing the need for a strategic overhaul, I was tasked by my manager, Justin Leggett, to propose a revamp.
The website was using an older #.net cms, which meant the mission would be tough considering I was not too familiar with #dotNet at the time, but I had a background in #java development, so it wasn't too much of a learning curve to adapt to the syntax. The next challenge came in cleaning up all of the data from old pages, forms, and data modules that had accumulated on the back-end for over a decade. I put together some pretty creative/complicated #sql queries to pull the data I needed on which pages were actually being utilized vs ones that hadn't been touched in ages. This was particularly a challenge because the table structure was a complete mess.
Original:
My Concept:
Drawing inspiration from the company's existing design, I pondered how to modernize it effectively. However, my initial concept was met with resistance as it was deemed too similar to the current design. It became evident that a complete reimagining of the website's functionality was required.
Over the course of the next year and a half, I collaborated with colleagues, iterating on designs and ideas until we arrived at a solution deemed worthy of implementation. Simultaneously, we undertook overhauls of our patient and physician portals to ensure a cohesive digital experience.
Finally, after much deliberation and effort, the new design was implemented on our dotNet-based platform. This endeavor demanded extensive custom development, leveraging JavaScript, MySQL modules for data retrieval, and various tools to ensure smooth operation on our Azure server.
Eventually, our organization decided to migrate to #Drupal as our CMS for hosting the website due to the need to delegate tasks to less technical team members. This required several additional months of brushing up on #php and learning the drupal code base and how things worked. Several custom custom Drupal blocks and modules were built and decoupled. And as a result, we have a much more robust and extendable platform to continue building and improving our digital front-door experience.
Here's the final result:
[Link: https://lifebridgehealth.org]