In 2019, as the Development Manager at RC Design, I led the digital transformation for Southlake Regional Health Centre. This was a landmark project for the agency, serving as the launchpad for a new era of development standards. I was responsible for overseeing the entire development team and architecting the systems that would power Southlake and all future agency projects.

 

Our goal was to move away from legacy page builders and embrace the future of WordPress. I spearheaded the creation of the Orange Framework, a proprietary Theme Framework built on Gutenberg and Advanced Custom Fields (ACF). This framework allowed us to deliver a high-performance, modular editing experience for hospital staff while maintaining strict brand and security standards.

 

Gutenberg & ACF Block Engineering
I led the team in developing a library of custom “Blocks” that revolutionized how the hospital managed its content:

Core Blocks: Customized native WordPress blocks for enhanced UI/UX.

Integrated API Blocks: Engineered blocks that pulled real-time data from external APIs, allowing the hospital to display dynamic information without manual updates.

Modular Design: The framework ensured that complex layouts remained responsive and accessible (WCAG compliant) across the entire Southlake portal.

 

My Role & Leadership Contributions
Development Manager: Directed a team of developers to ensure the project was delivered on time and met the high standards of the Canadian healthcare sector.

Lead Systems Architect: Designed the “Orange Framework,” which became the technical foundation for all subsequent agency projects, drastically increasing development efficiency and site performance.

Strategic Consultant: Collaborated with Southlake’s stakeholders to translate complex medical communication needs into a user-friendly, block-based content management system.

Infrastructure Oversight: Managed the relationship and technical configuration with Flywheel to ensure the hospital’s hosting environment was optimized for their specific resource needs.