The Project
By offering a user-first, community-centered, and accessible online platform, Multnomah County Health Department’s site empowers the ICS Communications Team to manage content effectively and ensures vital health information is readily available to their diverse community. The Multnomah County Health Department sought to launch a new, accessible, and inclusive Drupal website for its Health Center clinics. In collaboration with After Bruce, we built a website that provides an easily manageable resource for patients and potential clients to learn about services, find providers and locations, and access health information in multiple languages.
The Multnomah County Health Department recognized the critical need for a modern, accessible, and easily manageable website to serve its diverse patient base. The existing online presence required significant improvements to better connect individuals with essential healthcare services, particularly in multiple languages and for those with low literacy. Collaborating with our partner agency, After Bruce, who handled the discovery and design phase, Kalamuna implemented the solution into Drupal. Our project's primary aim was to bridge this gap by transforming static information into an intuitive and comprehensive digital platform, enabling the Multnomah County Health Department’s ICS Communications Team to efficiently manage content and ensure all community members could access vital health information seamlessly.
Project Tour
The new Multnomah County Health Center website was built with a core mission: to provide an accessible and inclusive digital platform that connects a diverse community with vital health services. We transitioned the health center's online presence from a scattered collection of pages on the leading county site to a dedicated, user-first Drupal website. This new architecture ensures that patients and potential clients can easily find information on services, locations, and providers, with a deliberate and strategic focus on serving community members who speak one of the county's top five languages or those who are impacted by low literacy. The site is a powerful tool for empowering the Health Department’s communications team to manage content and respond to community needs thoughtfully.
From a technical standpoint, the project was a showcase of thoughtful development. By displaying edit forms in the front-end custom Drupal theme and setting paragraph fields to preview the content, we provided a visual editing experience that rivals other layout frameworks, but with a much more straightforward and accessible implementation. This empowers the County's communications team to manage content effortlessly without needing a developer. A key feature included the integration of MyMaps, providing a simple yet powerful solution for both internal management and external display of mobile clinic locations. Furthermore, our team provided consultation during the design phase to ensure technical feasibility and implemented a language switcher to handle the multilingual content seamlessly. Our digital solution allowed for mixed language display, allowing the user to choose their preferred language for menus.
The final result is an impactful digital product designed to genuinely serve the community. The new website helps local residents find critical services like free medical support and mobile clinics. The site was built to exceed WCAG 2.1 Level AA accessibility standards, ensuring maximum usability for everyone, including those with disabilities and those who use assistive technology. The successful collaboration between all teams resulted in a robust, easy-to-manage platform that will continue to support Multnomah County's mission to advance health equity for its residents.
Kalamuna’s deep knowledge of Drupal and accessibility was clear from day one, but what truly set them apart was their collaborative approach. They took our vision and breathed life into it, translating our designs into a thoughtful and accessible Drupal website. They were the ideal technical partner to help us realize this project for the Multnomah County Health community.
Tracy Nguyen-Chung
After Bruce
The Multnomah Health Center website stands as a testament to the power of a strategic and collaborative approach. By focusing on a user-first, community-centered, and accessible platform, we were able to address the critical needs of a diverse patient base. The successful migration to a dedicated Drupal site, combined with thoughtful technical implementation and ongoing support, has provided the County with a robust and sustainable digital asset. This project has not only improved access to essential health services for thousands of residents but also empowered the Health Department to more effectively fulfill its mission of advancing health equity.