Hi, I'm Janar Bauirjan! For the last eight years, I’ve worked as a Registered Nurse at the Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center, primarily serving on the Neuroscience/ Stroke unit.

I know what you’re thinking! Is she a UX designer or a nurse? And how do you go from being a nurse to a UX designer?

In 2019, I attended my first nurse hack-a-thon, where I learned about design thinking for health. On the final day, I pitched my team’s award-winning business idea, “TeleHope.” It was a mobile app concept to help bridge gaps in access to mental health services. I remember a panelist judge asked, “do you have an app prototype?” I laughed to say, “we had brainstormed the idea only 24 hours ago.” The next day, feeling inspired, I enrolled in a User Experience (UX) Digital Design program at UCLA Extension.

Just as I began the year-long program in 2020, the pandemic shut down the world. Well, everything except hospitals and change was happening everywhere I looked. I had a new appreciation for problem-solving with a design thinking framework for the gaps I observed in different technologies, products, and workflows. UCLA’s Nursing Informatics Fellowship allowed me to apply my UX education. I had the opportunity to lead 1 of 4 initiatives working with the UCLA ISS team. In Project Giving U Back T.I.M.E., the aim was to optimize the electronic health record to reduce documentation burden for nurses. It was a worthwhile challenge to navigate how to successfully implement system-wide changes across 22 units within 2 UCLA hospitals.

What drives me is envisioning a future where our approach to promoting health prioritizes the user’s needs above all else. The world of immersive digital therapeutics, such as virtual reality, fascinates me in the many innovative ways we can transform our health. My passions in UX revolve around service design, UX research, and content design. I look forward to collaborating with you!