Emily Gregoire

Dialysis Vascular Access

Pairing health education with a patient story

Details

Client: UNC Kidney Center

Year: 2021

Creative Direction: Terence Oliver

Design & Illustration: Emily Gregoire, Brittany Oliver, Terence Oliver

Animation: Emily Gregoire, Brittany Oliver

This 18.5 minute motion graphic video was created for the Kidney Center at the University of North Carolina School of Medicine. The goal of the project was to create resources that healthcare providers can rely on to educate new patients on the process of getting and using a vascular access for dialysis.

Animated GIF of a character named Caroline standing in a subway car. The GIF then transitions to a graphic of the vascular access process represented as a subway map.
We represented the process of getting a vascular access through a subway train metaphor to show a journey with many stops.

Challenge

I was closely involved in this project from the beginning, including exploring character design and animation styles, storyboarding and creating assets based on scientific content, animating over 70% of the final video, and incorporating many rounds of stakeholder feedback.

The tone of the video was to be approachable, accessible, and informative.

Since we wanted to pair health education with a patient story, we landed on telling the story through the perspective of a real person named Caroline. We represent her journey through the subway metaphor to signpost the stages of the vascular access process.

The simple illustration style and eye catching but calming color palette are meant to resonate with viewers and validate their emotional experience during a potentially overwhelming medical treatment.

All characters originally had stylized skin tones for more ambiguous racial representations. Near the end of the project, a stakeholder requested that we change some of the characters to realistic skin tones, which I understand. In subsequent videos I’ve worked on, I have made sure skin tones are consistently portrayed across all characters.

Results

Gold Award Winner at the 2021 Digital Health Awards

1000+ views on Vimeo

Expanded into a Vascular Access toolkit, including brochures in English, Spanish, and Portuguese

See it in action

The materials are still being used by the Kidney Center as a resource for patients beginning the vascular access journey.

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Let’s not let this moment slip away. Who knows what we can create together!

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