Southwest Health

Website Design & Development

Client: Southwest Health (regional hospital & health system)
Location: Platteville, WI, with clinics across southwest Wisconsin
Industry: Healthcare & Hospital Systems
Platform: WordPress + Elementor Pro
Backend & Data: Advanced Custom Fields (ACF) + Custom Post Types
Filtering: [Filter plugin, name it here] for services A-Z and search
Scope: ~130 providers, ~60 services, plus dozens of internal pages
Role: Lead Designer & Developer, Stellar Blue Technologies

Southwest Health

Southwest Health is a growing not-for-profit regional health system serving southwest Wisconsin, with a hospital campus in Platteville and clinics spread across the surrounding communities. With a fast-growing range of providers and services, they needed a website big enough to hold all of it and smart enough to keep it findable.

I came onto this project to finish it. It had been a long time in the making, with a lot of work done before I joined, and the previous designer had left. The homepage was fully designed, but the systems that would make a site this large actually work still needed to be built. That’s where I came in, and I ended up owning the project from there through launch.

The Challenge

This was a massive healthcare site, and I inherited it in the middle of the build with the person who started it already gone.

The previous designer had left before I joined, so I picked the project up mid-stream
The homepage was designed, but there was no documentation to work from, so I pulled the branding from the client’s assets and from the existing Elementor settings
The site needed a searchable directory of around 130 providers, with every photo and detail pulling correctly
It needed around 60 services, organized so patients could actually find the one they needed
Dozens of internal pages needed a consistent, maintainable structure
And it all had to be built so the client’s own team could keep it running after launch

Scope of Work

Picking up the project mid-build, my job was to:

Finish the website and carry it through to launch
Build the provider directory: a reusable template, working filtering, and provider images and information that pull correctly
Build the services experience: an alphabetical, searchable A-Z list of every service
Create a reusable internal-page template with contextual sidebars for different kinds of information
Train the client’s marketing team so they could populate and maintain the site themselves

Tools Used:

I took over a large, half-finished hospital website and built out the systems that make it work, a provider directory, a services library, and reusable page templates, then handed it off so the client could run it on their own.

Taking Over the Build

Picked the project up mid-build after the previous designer left, with only the homepage designed
Worked with no documentation, so I reverse-engineered the brand from the client’s assets and the existing Elementor settings, exactly the way I’d later approach the City of Neenah
Took ownership of the project and drove it through to launch, mostly on my own, pulling in our programmer only when a specific piece of custom programming called for it

The Provider Directory

Built a searchable directory of around 130 providers, powered by ACF and Custom Post Types
Created a reusable provider page template so every provider page was consistent, and made sure every photo and detail pulled correctly from the data
The template surfaces everything a patient needs in one place: specialty, whether they’re accepting new patients, their clinic locations, credentials and education, biography, and even a patient-satisfaction ratings module
Got the filtering working so patients could actually find the right provider

Services, A to Z

Built an alphabetical, searchable library of around 60 services
Added a letter-jump filter and search so a visitor can go straight to what they need instead of scrolling, part of the filter plugin the site runs on
Gave individual services their own template, with appointment details, associated providers, and supporting information (some, like Massage Therapy, even carry full pricing tables)

Internal Page Template & Contextual Sidebars

Created a reusable template for the internal pages so a large site stayed consistent and maintainable
Built contextual sidebars that pull the right in-section navigation depending on what type of information a visitor is viewing, so they never lose their place
Used it to organize dense, practical content like the Patients & Visitors section, campus maps, patient rights, and more

Training & Handoff

Trained two members of the Southwest Health marketing team to use and maintain the site
Recorded custom training videos during our video calls, so they always had something to reference
Kept the door open after: when they emailed a question, I’d make them a walkthrough video answering it
This let their team populate content, copy, and images themselves, which sped up the build and, more importantly, left them able to run the site long after launch

Results & Impact

I took a massive, long-in-progress hospital website across the finish line and launched it in Winter 2022, a directory of around 130 providers, a library of around 60 services, and dozens of internal pages, all built on reusable templates and working filtering. The site is still live today as I built it.

Just as important as the launch: the client’s own team walked away able to run it. Because I trained them and left them a library of videos, Southwest Health wasn’t dependent on anyone to keep their site current. They were wonderful to work with, and grateful for the work, which meant a lot on a project this big.

Why This Project Matters

This is the project that shows what I can do when things are big, messy, and mine to figure out. Inheriting a half-built hospital website with no documentation, owning it solo, and building the systems that make 130 providers and 60 services genuinely findable is about as demanding as web work gets.

But the part I’m proudest of isn’t the size. It’s that I didn’t just build it and leave. I taught the people who’d live with it every day how to make it their own. Healthcare is high-stakes and personal, and a site that helps someone find the right provider or the right service, quickly, is quietly doing real good. Getting to build that, and then hand it off in good hands, is exactly the kind of work I care about most.