Giving healthcare staff control
over their time

Project overview

LGI Healthcare Solutions is a Canadian company that has been building software for healthcare organizations for 40 years.

450employees across Canada

320khealthcare users

6Mpatients supported

LGI Scheduling was one of the company’s key products: a desktop platform that helps managers and schedulers staff healthcare institutions, under complex union and collective-agreement rules. As the product designer in charge of it, I designed its mobile companion: an app that finally lets staff view and act on their own schedules.

What I owned

• Product visionShaped the app from the early stages of the LGI Scheduling product roadmap.
• Business caseBuilt the business case and drafted the product structure.
• User and market researchRan user research with client organizations and their staff, and owned the competitor analysis matrix to map market gaps.
• MVP definitionDefined the personas, key scenarios and requirements, and set the MVP scope with the Product Director.
• DesignDesigned the experience end to end, with accessibility built into the design system.
• DeliverySupervised production with the external development partner, including design QA.

LGI Scheduling: One system, two experiences

The mobile app runs on top of the desktop platform, sharing the same schedules and rules in real time.

The business case for a mobile app

LGI Scheduling covered only the management side: staff had no way to see or act on their own schedules, so that part of the journey was missing from the system. At the same time, the competitor analysis I built revealed new players offering staff self-service on mobile, and public healthcare clients were asking for a way to involve staff in scheduling and fill shifts faster. Building a mobile companion on top of the existing platform closed the gap, kept LGI competitive and answered a direct client need.

Main project objectives

Process

I led design from the first idea to production, working with my product team and an external development partner. I helped shape the app from the early stages of the LGI Scheduling product roadmap: I built the business case, drafted the product structure and ran the user and business research. I then designed the experience and supervised production with the external development company through to launch.

1. 1

   Discovery

   Understand the market and the staff who would use the app.

   • Market analysis
   • User interviews
   • Surveys
   • Stakeholder workshops
2. 2

   Define

   Turn findings into a clear scope and priorities.

   • User persona cards
   • Product roadmap
   • User journeys
   • MVP prioritization
3. 3

   Design

   Shape the app from first concepts to final screens.

   • User flows
   • Low to high-fidelity design
   • Product design system definition
   • Interactive prototypes
4. 4

   Delivery

   Bring the design to production with the build team.

   • Validation testing
   • External dev handoff

1Discovery – Listen to organizations and employees

Interviews with our clients showed two clear reasons behind the request: giving employees more visibility and control over their own calendar, and giving schedulers a more powerful tool to fill empty shifts. Sessions with nurses and schedulers at the healthcare providers confirmed the same need in their daily work.

Key pain points from client interviews

Interviews with healthcare organizations already using LGI Scheduling surfaced four recurring problems.

• Too many channels. Requests arrived by text, voicemail, email, notes and in person.
• Last-minute changes. Frequent short-notice requests and schedules changing every week.
• No transparency. Staff had little control over overtime, time off and extra shifts.
• Rules that can’t bend. Nurse ratios, seniority and maximum hours are fixed requirements.

Competitor analysis

How the main scheduling solutions in the Canadian market covered the staff side.

2Define – Converge the research outputs

The interview findings were turned into four personas, one for each role the app had to serve, so every design decision stayed tied to real user needs.

Four personas, four different perspectives

Emily TremblayRegistered Nurse

34 · full-time · rotating day/night shifts

“My schedule shouldn’t change the night before.”

NeedsA stable, fair schedule that respects her breaks and time off

FrustrationsUnanswered requests and overtime after long shifts

Marc BouchardCook, Food Services

42 · full-time · early morning shifts

“Keep it simple. I don’t have time to learn a complicated app.”

NeedsCheck his shifts and request vacation without calling the office

FrustrationsPaper schedules on the wall; not very confident with apps

Daniel MensahHealth Care Aide

24 · part-time · picks up extra shifts

“I want extra shifts, but I always hear about them too late.”

NeedsPick up open shifts fast and swap shifts around his studies

FrustrationsOffers arrive by phone call when he can’t answer

Julien GagnonScheduler

35 · full-time · weekday office hours

“One sick call can take my whole morning on the phone.”

NeedsFill last-minute gaps fast while respecting collective agreements

FrustrationsCalling staff one by one; too many request channels

Key scenarios

1. Daniel · Health Care Aide
   Picking up a last-minute shift

   A shift opens up tonight. Daniel gets an alert and bids on it with a swipe, right from the notification.

2. Emily · Registered Nurse
   Checking my week

   Before a run of night shifts, Emily opens the app and sees her week, shift details and breaks at a glance.

3. Marc · Cook, Food Services
   Requesting time off

   Marc checks his vacation balance, picks the dates and submits the request, without calling the office.

4. Julien · Scheduler
   Covering a sick call

   A nurse calls in sick at 6am. Julien sends one offer to every qualified person instead of phoning them one by one.

1-year solution roadmap

The roadmap balanced three inputs: the priorities that emerged from user research, the company’s business goals and the technical constraints of building on the existing platform. Together they set the release order: schedule and shift offers first, then time off, then shift swaps.

3Design – A new mobile app

A simple, mobile-first experience designed around the daily reality of healthcare staff: quick to check, easy to act on, and always up to date.

Feature highlight

Automated shift callout

Staff & schedulers

The system finds the right people for a last-minute shift, sends them the offer and confirms the assignment, so schedulers no longer have to call staff one by one.

1. 1The scheduler finds a last-minute gap to cover

2. 2A callout goes to the staff the system selected

3. 3The nurse gets a new shift offer notification

4. 4She opens the app and bids with a simple swipe

5. 5The scheduler awards the shift by collective agreement rules

6. 6The nurse is notified and sees the shift in her calendar

Shift callout workflow

Swipes to accept

Flow detail

1. 
   1Offer received

   A push notification arrives, even on the lock screen.

2. 
   2View shift offer details

   Open the shift offer details to check all the essential information before bidding on it.

3. 
   3Swipe to bid

   One swipe right on the card to accept the shift.

4. 
   4Confirmed

   Instant confirmation, and the offer leaves the list.

Feature highlight

One calendar for everything: shifts, leave and offers

Nurses & healthcare staff

Staff see their shifts, leave and open offers together in one calendar, so they can plan their time and decide on new shifts at a glance.

1. Two views, one tap apart

   Switch between the personal calendar and open shift offers.

2. Week or month, one swipe away

   The weekly strip expands into a full monthly view, with shifts and offers marked on each day.

3. Key info first

   Shift code and time on top; occupation, unit and site below.

4. Status you can’t miss

   Absences switch to a dark card with a clear label.

Key design decision: Letting the design make the case

The product team wanted offers and the calendar in two separate sections, worried that mixing them would confuse staff. Research showed the opposite need: to decide whether to bid, staff had to see their schedule around the offer day. I treated it as a UI problem, keeping both in one view with a clear visual distinction between shifts and offers. The design convinced the team.

Trade-off: a more complex component to design, but faster, better-informed decisions for staff.

Keeping clarity with accessible design

The main risk was confusion: the calendar shows offers and owned shifts with the same structure. Confirmed shifts and open offers use different colors, but they also differ in texture and shape to follow WCAG 2.1 accessibility requirements (Use of Color: color is never the only way to convey meaning). That way the difference is still clear for people with color-vision deficiencies, in bright sunlight or in grayscale.

Shift

A confirmed shift, already in the employee’s calendar.

Offer

A shift offered to the employee, not in their calendar yet.

4Delivery – Implementing the mobile app

Development was handled by an external partner. I stayed in charge of design QA, supervising the build step by step so every release matched the designs and the experience we had validated with staff.

Impact on the organization

Lessons learned