Clinical pathways are evidence-based guides that help clinicians deliver consistent care. The challenge: existing pathways across Starship Hospital varied widely in format, had no visual consistency, and had to be rebuilt from scratch each time. I was approached to design a system that would fix that.

I led the design work end to end — researching best practice, auditing existing formats, prototyping with clinicians, and delivering a modular design kit and comprehensive style guide aligned with Starship’s existing brand that the Clinical Pathways team could own and use independently long-term.

The system

The visual design system included typography rules, colour application, layout templates, hierarchy guidelines, and usage documentation. It was built to be adopted by non-designers, applied consistently across departments, and scaled without needing a designer in the room every time.

Outcomes

A reusable system that reduced cognitive load for clinicians, improved pathway consistency across services, and gave Starship's team the tools to maintain and extend it independently.