Lara Bautista

vitalera’s product enables remote healthcare monitoring for patients with chronic conditions. The platform allows patients to track their health from home using connected medical devices and mobile apps, while giving healthcare professionals the tools to monitor patients remotely and intervene early when health issues arise.

Team evolution & my role

Phase	Team size	My contribution	Team collaboration
Foundation (2019-20)	3-8 people	Built first interfaces, learned the basics of UX	Direct collaboration with CEO/CTO
Validation (2020-21)	8-12 people	Iterated based on hospital feedback, usability testing sessions with patients	Attended client meetings with clinical team
Scaling (2022-23)	12-15 people	Led design migration to Flutter, created and worked with design systems	Worked closely with expanded dev team
Growth (2024)	15 people	International compliance, brand evolution	Cross-functional collaboration at scale

The challenge: Designing for life-critical use cases

Key design solutions

Patient application

Built interfaces for daily health monitoring that patients users could navigate independently, with clear visual guidance and simplified data entry flows.

Professional dashboard

Created clinical tools that allowed healthcare teams to quickly assess multiple patients and prioritize care based on automated health alerts and trend analysis.

Cross-platform design system

Developed a component library that maintained consistency while adapting to different hospital & clients branding requirements.

Technical growth

Self-directed learning

Taught myself UX through online resources while contributing to frontend development - from Bootstrap and JavaScript to Flutter migration.

Hybrid role value

Understanding both design and development allowed me to implement my own designs and participate meaningfully in technical planning with our engineering team.

Team integration

Worked closely with backend developers on API design and with mobile developers on Flutter architecture, learning from their expertise while contributing design perspective.

Team success & my contribution

What we achieved together

• Platform serving 30+ healthcare organizations internationally
• Partnerships with health institutions & device manufacturers
• Clinical validation through peer-reviewed studies

My specific role

Ensured the technical capabilities our team built were accessible to vulnerable users and efficient for healthcare professionals through thoughtful interface design.

Learning from colleagues

Clinical team members taught me healthcare workflows, backend developers showed me system constraints, and business team provided market context that shaped design decisions.

Skills developed

Healthcare UX specialization

• Design within medical regulations
• Interfaces for vulnerable populations
• Complex clinical workflows

Technical capabilities

• Frontend development across multiple frameworks
• Mobile-first healthcare applications
• Design system architecture

Key takeaway

Working as the sole designer in a growing healthcare startup taught me that great UX emerges from exceptional teamwork. While I owned the design process, our clinical outcomes resulted from close collaboration with colleagues who brought deep healthcare expertise, technical excellence, and business insight.

The experience showed me how design amplifies team capabilities - when patients consistently engage with monitoring tools and doctors make faster clinical decisions, it’s because the entire team created something valuable, with UX serving as the bridge between technical possibility and human need.

*** Interface screenshots cannot be shared due to healthcare confidentiality requirements. ***