Michigan Medicine is one of the top academic medical centers in the country, bringing together patient care, medical education, and groundbreaking research under one roof.
What’s special about the organization is that it does it all with a deeply rooted mission to “advance health to serve Michigan and the world.” It’s the kind of institution where science, compassion, and innovation aren’t just ideals, they’re lived values. But their digital presence didn’t reflect that.
Problem to solve:
Over the years, Michigan Medicine had accumulated more than 300 individual websites. Each one was built in its own silo, with different teams, different systems, different styles.
The result was a fragmented user experience, a lot of duplicated effort, and a digital brand that didn’t quite match the organization’s impact.
The ask wasn’t small: help reimagine their entire digital ecosystem so it works better for patients, students, researchers, and internal teams, all while staying true to their mission and vision.
How I helped:
Michigan Medicine serves a wide range of audiences: patients searching for care, researchers pushing the boundaries of science, and students looking for opportunity. So we designed with real people and real needs in mind.
Content was restructured around actual decision journeys, not internal org charts.
- Accessibility wasn’t an afterthought; it was a baseline.
- Mobile came first.
- Content was restructured around actual decision journeys, not internal org charts.
The mission of Michigan Medicine is bold: “Our discoveries change care. Our care changes lives.” That energy needed to come through, not just in the words, but in the design system, photography, and flow.
We built a digital language that felt modern, trustworthy, and human. And we designed a component-based system that allowed internal teams to scale content without sacrificing consistency.
The results speak for themselves:
- A single, cohesive site that reflects the strength and spirit of Michigan Medicine
- A streamlined backend that saves teams time and resources
- A more accessible, intuitive experience for every visitor, on every device
- And notably: more than $1.7 million in annual savings from sunsetting and consolidating those legacy sites