While working at Aspire Ventures, one of the strategic initiatives that my team and I worked on was the ideation and branding of a new kind of proving ground for medical technology and patient experience. That initiative became the Smart Health Innovation Lab.
The Problem
At Aspire Universal, parent of Aspire Ventures, we always invested in disruptive technologies and ventures that used machine learning at its foundation, and our managing directors were very focused in the realm of healthcare. A number of ventures already focused on healthcare issues such as Type 1 Diabetes and medical imaging. Our Principal Managing Director, Essam Abadir, had a vision of creating a collaborative laboratory that would bring different parts of the healthcare network together to develop technologies to improve patients’ lives. Imagine a hospital system, startups, and an insurance company working together with physicians and patients to develop treatments, technologies, and workflows that would propel the healthcare system into predictive medicine and AI-driven preventative care. It was a big idea.
My and team and I were tasked with defining what that company would be called and creating the accompanying brand guide and materials that would position this company as a disruptor and leader in the healthcare space.
Exploration
After attending an all-hands presentation on the vision of this “smart lab” my team and I worked on a number of style tiles and mood boards to settle on the keywords we developed in our brainstorming session: Smart, Health, Innovation, and Laboratory….so Smart Health Innovation Lab beautifully wrapped it up. Other names we considered and toyed with included.
- Iypx Health
- Caduceus Labs
- Neutek Lab
- The Continuum
Upon settling with Smart Health Innovation Lab, we set about developing what brand archetypes it should espouse.
As we interviewed several of the managing directors on their vision of the lab, recurring themes, and hopes were repeated back to us.
“The lab should be a place of freedom and exploration. We want to take the current system of delivery of care and reimagine it for patients.”
“This should be the model of the future healthcare system.”
“This lab will be the epitome of patient care as we disrupt a broken system of unconnected care.”
These qualities and traits expressed by the leadership make it clear that our archetypes fell into Outlaw, Explorer, and Caregiver. Since the Outlaw and Explorer types significantly play well with each other we coalesced them into one dubbed the visionary and built a persona around this archetype using descriptions and traits of Louis Pasteur, Elon Musk, Marie Curie, and a small bit of Bill Gates. Once the persona was developed and defined the traits, dispositions, and what was important to this brand, then we worked on logo mockups.
Design & Development
After a two week period of developing logo concepts and performing guerilla preference tests with people around Lancaster, PA. we developed a lockup that best resonated with people and our leadership. We began developing a visual and written lexicon that we used to inform our brand guide and the subsequent website design.
Initially, we were going to build the website using our RED3 CMS, but instead opted for WordPress due to the nature of the venture and allowing access to non-AV staff so we opted to build a custom WordPress theme. As the Smart Health Innovation Lab was essentially a proving ground of various types of healthcare-focused apps and technologies we wanted the ability for participants of that program to blog about their work at the lab. The site was designed in Figma and built using the Underscores starter theme.
Outcomes
The Lab had its grand opening in June 2018 with several initial applicant companies that got to spend their day with Lancaster General Health, Capital Blue, and Clio Health. The first cohort to join Smart Health Innovation Lab included startups focused on medical imaging, bio-feedback capture, physical therapy, and predictive monitoring. These companies spent valuable time with providers, technologists, insurance providers, healthcare system administrators to provide feedback, insight, and advice to their business models, care models, and interoperability within their HIT ecosystems. Since the grand opening, Smart Health Innovation Lab continues working with new companies and develops a partnership network of like-minded organizations to create shared success and opportunities for furthering precision medicine.
Credits
The vision for the Smart Health Innovation Lab was Essam Abadir and the fellow managing directors. A huge thank you to the CEO and healthcare IT expert, Kim Ireland, who worked closely with my team in developing the brand archetype, positioning, and communication plans. Finally, my design team at Aspire Ventures was instrumental in developing the voice and tone, visual guidelines, and development of the website.
My Role
My role was mainly that of the Creative Director and Project Manager. I worked closely with the managing directors and the CEO to define the brand archetype and positioning in order to convey the main messages and themes in order for the time to develop the brand persona and aesthetics required to convey the right message to our audience. Additionally, I served as the UI designer and developer to build the new website on WordPress.
