From zero-to-launch: transforming fragmented workflows for state-led municipalities into a predictive dashboard that cuts admin burden, delivers financial transparency, and accelerates first-responder recovery timelines.
Acted as both external UX strategists and internal product team, rapidly ramping up in a complex, compliance-heavy industry to deliver research, prototypes, and board presentations that aligned multi-stakeholder voices from CEO to end-users.
Deep user research across 9 cross-market interviews and 8 user flows produced journey maps and Figma prototypes that elevated administrators from manual tasks to strategic roles, replacing rote workflows with AI-powered transparency.
Synthesized fragmented injury, treatment, and duty-status data into prioritized visualizations and AI benchmarking layers (ODG compliance, liability prediction), turning raw data actionable for non-financial leaders like fire/police chiefs.
Backed by 20+ years in healthcare, translated complex medical, occupational health, and workers’ compensation data into clear operational insight, aligning predictive models with real recovery pathways and compliance standards.
Ready Rebound is a health and recovery navigation solution for first-responders and essential workers that delivers rapid, concierge-level access to high-quality orthopedic, sports medicine, and specialty care, cutting the time from injury to diagnosis and treatment from weeks to days. It plugs into existing HR, risk, and workers’ compensation workflows to handle authorizations, imaging, scheduling, and communication, easing administrative load while helping leaders control overtime, maintain staffing levels, and boost member satisfaction.
"This was a strategic, first-to-market initiative for Ready Rebound, and Oliven Labs was with us every step of the way, from initial proof of concept and early prospective customer interviews to bridging the gap between strategy, customer research and design. They had the rare ability to pivot seamlessly from high-level strategic work to hands-on execution, all while delivering within a defined budget. Kristine and team were a deeply trusted partner throughout the process, even presenting early-stage concepts, user validation, and personas to our board. I would highly recommend Oliven Labs for any organization looking to spearhead innovation.”
David Reeves
CEO
Ready Rebound
Governments face a fragmented, highly regulated, and administratively heavy return-to-work process, with no unified way to translate complex injury, treatment, compliance, and duty-status data into actionable insight. Recovery is complicated by siloed systems and limited transparency across HR, Risk, Safety, Command Staff, and employees, all of which slow decision-making and obscure the true operational and financial consequences of delayed recovery. Operating under limited budgets, political constraints, and legacy workflows, leaders lack transparency into recovery progress, financial impact, staffing risk, and liability exposure. Starting from an under-defined product foundation, the challenge was to define and quantify the end-to-end return-to-work journey and design a compliant, intuitive dashboard that reduces administrative burden, shortens recovery timelines, and creates financial and organizational clarity, elevating human decision-making through automation, predictive analytics, and a transparent lens on recovery.
Making complex recovery data transparent so municipalities can act on high-cost, high-risk cases with confidence.
50% reduction in process time with workflow automation initiatives
Fragmented, manual return-to-work workflows increase administrative effort, introduce risk, and materially extend recovery timelines.
$100B spent annually by state and local governments on workers’ compensation and related benefits
Without clear, trusted data on costs, leaders cannot confidently justify investment, nor be proactive with indemnity challenges and litigation realities.
25% of total healthcare spending lost to siloed systems
Disconnected tools and teams limit shared visibility across HR, Risk, Safety, and leadership, slowing decisions and extending recovery timelines.
Oliven Labs led end-to-end UX research, strategy, product management, and design for a 0-to-1 unified dashboard consolidating injury, treatment, and duty-status data for municipalities. Starting from a high-level feature list, the team took the concept from idea to interactive prototype, conducting research with 9 government municipalities across 8 states, mapping the full return-to-work journey for injured first-responders, and validating the solution through customer feedback. This work laid the foundation for their first product release to market, transforming fragmented workflows into predictive, actionable tools that reduce administrative burden, accelerate recovery timelines, provide leaders with transparent insight, and activate their customer partner program.
Identified critical workflows across HR, Risk, Safety, Command Staff, first-responders, and internal teams creating detailed journey maps that became the foundation for product strategy and a shared reference point across the organization.
Collaborated with AI Engineer to ideate solutions for future-facing AI-enabled financial risk assessments, benchmarking, and operational risks.
Board presentation offered a unique lens to the customers voice with deep qualitative research from municipalities interviewed, presenting behavioral archetypes and live demo of proof-of-concept, building buy-in and validating assumptions with real end-user voices.
Rather than simply replacing manual tasks, the system was designed to elevate administrators from reactive task management into strategic, high-value roles, giving them the transparency and financial data needed to advocate for resources and demonstrate program ROI.
Acted as both external advisor and internal product owner, shifting seamlessly between tactical design work and strategic leadership to meet evolving business needs, resulting in the successful onboarding of the company’s first VP of Product and Senior AI Engineer.
Delivered full-scale research, strategy, product management, and design, leveraging 20+ years of healthcare expertise to rapidly master complex, compliance-heavy workflows (HIPAA, WCAGAA 2.1) while balancing tactical execution with strategic vision.
Built an organized library of research insights, journey maps, personas, and strategic frameworks that enabled a single source of truth for product decisions that continue to inform the product evolution.
Engaged voices across the entire ecosystem, from board members to internal teams to end-users, synthesizing competing priorities and political complexities into a unified product vision that secured buy-in at every level and gave leadership confidence to invest in an entirely new market opportunity.
End-users want to move beyond rote tasks; AI-driven predictions and transparency position administrators as strategic advisors, replacing manual workflows while creating higher-value oversight of recovery outcomes.
Siloed workflows across HR, Risk, Safety, Command staff, and first-responders creates hidden duplication and delays, revealing the need for a single dashboard to provide real-time visibility into injury, treatment, and duty status.
Research revealed administrators lack access to trusted data to justify budgets; dashboards must benchmark costs, predict liability, and demonstrate ROI to turn operational leaders into funding champions at the municipal level.
Interviews revealed that HR, Risk, Safety, Command, and leadership operating in isolation slow critical recovery decisions, obscuring team-wide impacts, and preventing municipalities from acting decisively to get employees back to work efficiently.
Delivered client-validated proof-of-concept with prioritized visualizations benchmarking ODG guidelines and predicting return-to-work timelines, liability claims, and budgets, elevating non-financial leaders such as fire and police chiefs with AI-driven transparency. This validated a “Salesforce for municipal recovery” opportunity, aligned CEO vision with board buy-in via end-user voice, reduced administrative complexity in politically charged environments, and positioned Ready Rebound to shorten recovery timelines while creating municipality-wide financial advocates.
