Problem
A large US healthcare group was building a unified digital platform spanning prescription management, patient records, and pharmacy operations. Multiple product teams were making independent technical decisions with no central architecture oversight — leading to duplicated data-fetching layers, inconsistent error handling across regulated workflows, and no clear pattern for handling PHI (Protected Health Information) in the frontend.
Role
Principal Frontend Architect. My mandate was cross-team: no direct reports, but responsible for establishing the architectural guardrails that all teams operated within. I introduced the ADR process, ran weekly architecture office hours, and owned the shared technical standards documentation.
Stack
- Architecture governance: ADR (Architecture Decision Record) process — 22 decisions recorded in the first six months
- Data layer: Apollo Client with strict cache policy standards to prevent PHI leaking across patient contexts
- State: Context-scoped state boundaries enforced via custom ESLint rules to prevent cross-context contamination
- Accessibility: WCAG 2.1 AA compliance baseline — tested with screen readers and automated axe-core checks in CI
- Testing: Playwright for E2E on critical prescription flows; every new shared component required Storybook story + accessibility story
Outcome
- ADR library became the single source of truth for architecture decisions — onboarding time for new engineers reduced from ~3 weeks to under 1 week
- Zero PHI-related data-leakage incidents post-architecture guardrail implementation (vs. two incidents in the prior quarter)
- All critical workflows passed WCAG 2.1 AA audit before external compliance review
- Architecture patterns adopted by 5 product teams with no bespoke deviations