Moms and Kids Health Saskatchewan

Increasing access to health, education and well-being

Saskatoon: 2019

With the construction of the Jim Pattison Children’s Hospital (JPCH), the Saskatchewan Health Authority (SHA) was finally able to expand its services within the Maternal and Children’s Provincial Programs. These programs work to improve both the patient experience and health outcomes for mothers, babies, children and their families.

The SHA’s goal was (and still is) to be “a leader in service delivery and education for maternal and child healthcare services”.

Prior to 2019, these programs were scattered across the province with online information dispersed on 10+ health region websites.  There was no single source of information available for patients. With a new, ambitious goal and a state-of-the-art children’s hospital, the SHA needed a brand and website that would communicate its maternal and children's programs and services to Saskatchewan residents and stakeholders across Canada.

The Task
  • Create an inclusive brand informed by the people of Saskatchewan that represents the Maternal and Children’s Provincial Programs’ core values and goals and aligns with the SHA’s identity
  • Create a website that is accessible for mothers, children and their families in Saskatchewan
  • Balance the needs of the Saskatchewan Health Authority, the Maternal and Children’s Provincial Programs and the Jim Pattison Children’s hospital
  • Engage with stakeholders with representation spanning demographics and locations across the province
  • Help the SHA build trust and confidence with both internal (i.e. physicians, health care providers) and external (i.e. patients and their families) connections, and provide them with the necessary tools to navigate the healthcare system
THE STRATEGY

The Strategy

UX designers and digital strategists from zu traveled across Saskatchewan to speak with individuals and families who had sought health services from the Saskatchewan Health Authority. It was an opportunity to listen, learn and ask questions to better understand the barriers people face when accessing healthcare, with a focus on Indigenous peoples’ stories and sentiments. When we understand the nuances of personal situations and how someone approaches seeking medical attention, we can create a brand and a website that reaches the most vulnerable and helps to improve quality of life.

In addition to patient interviews, engaging with healthcare workers helped the team understand the purpose of the program, brand and website and helped to shape the outcomes of the project. We gathered information from SHA employees from frontline workers to management in order to capture all of the hopes and wishes of the new program.

With a website that contains an incredible amount of content, our teams used technology to survey the public and healthcare workers to see how individuals would navigate through the structure of the website and how information should be labeled and categorized. These card sort and treejack exercises helped our team build a sitemap and led to wireframes that could then be tested before being fully designed and implemented.

THE BRAND STORY

Mom & Kids Health Saskatchewan is a family-focused brand born from creative workshops, design collaboration and consultation with patients from across the province.

The handprint-shaped symbol contains five colours. These colours represent Saskatchewan’s natural landscapes (permaculture and bodies of water). They also speak to the established colours of the Jim Pattison Children's Hospital Foundation’s visual identity as well as the interior design/way-finding inside the hospital.

The handprint shape contains a set of figures representing, among other interpretations, a pregnant mother — or a new mother holding her baby — and a child to her left. These figures directly reference the patients who will utilize the Moms & Kids program province-wide. The handprint represents the humanity of the program and communicates that regardless of background, ethnicity, gender identity, socioeconomic status and so on, all people are welcome, accepted and cared for.

The Website

momsandkidssask.saskhealthauthority.ca

Creating a website for the new Moms & Kids Health Saskatchewan was a collaborative effort with the SHA, as the amalgamation of 10+ health region sites was simultaneously being evaluated and prepped for a digital overhaul. The content strategy was a key component in assigning roles and responsibilities for the website build while also setting up the SHA to govern the content into the future. Dealing with health-related website content, subject matter experts were essential in providing the zu and SHA writers with accurate information that would be transformed into content that was accessible to the people of Saskatchewan.

This elaborate system of gathering, writing, editing and approving content ensured that accuracy, appropriate reading levels and completeness of information were included in the new website.

Content management was a primary theme in the build of this website. Using Drupal, zu developers were able to assign roles to specific content managers while providing ease of editing and module flexibility to the SHA, knowing the website would grow and evolve for years to come.

Client Testimonial
zu did an excellent job through this entire process, and on incredibly tight deadlines. The level of thought and consideration that has gone into producing and presenting the visuals was evident through the whole project.
Courtney Forseth, SHA Communications Lead