Combining Strategy, Technology, and Content for an Immersive Next-generation Website for a Major Medical Center
Company Overview
The client is a large hospital and healthcare provider in New York, combining innovative care with the rigor of an academic medical institution. The provider has earned quality awards from the American College of Surgeons, the American Heart Association, the Joint Commission, and the American College of Radiology. In addition to a main hospital that first opened in 1895, the organization operates a network of physician practices and several major wellness centers including the Joint Replacement Center, the Jacobs Family Pride and Wellness Center, and the Madlyn Borelli Multiple Sclerosis Center.
There is also a foundation dedicated to building enduring community relationships, continuing to invest in state-of-the-art medical care, and exceptional programs with an outstanding patient experience.
The provider had been operating a website on an older version of the popular Drupal Content Management System that did not include the latest best practices for overall performance and user experience:
- Outdated Content Management System and operating system version made even basic edits to the site cumbersome and required significant maintenance to limit security risks
- Confusing information architecture that negatively affected the user experience and made key content difficult to find
- Desktop design that did not include the latest best practices and styles, and a limited mobile design that was hard to navigate
- Inconsistent content and missing content in key areas limited the ability of visitors to explore the services and programs available
- Limited interactive features to promote events, physicians, and other key initiatives
Key Objectives
The overall objective was to redesign the main website and upgrade the Content Management System and underlying technology. This included a thorough discovery phase to understand the organization’s latest goals and objectives, followed by an agile, iterative design and content development process before building the new site.
The combination of an engaging design that incorporated industry best practices for a positive user experience and more up-to-date content would prove compelling for visitors. The goal was to address the following elements:
Acquisition
Acquire more traffic with advanced SEO, SEM, and social advertising, plus viral sharing features
Retention
Drive repeat visits with engaging content, remarketing, and potential marketing automation programs
Conversion
Convert more patients with intuitive, progressive lead forms and improved engagement with key service line staff
Advocacy
Encourage customers to share their MFNH experiences with friends and colleagues
About the Project
Besides our end customer, Korcomptenz partnered with Wainscot Media throughout the project lifecycle. Wainscot Media helped provide strategic advice and deep knowledge of healthcare content to achieve the objectives. The project began with a discovery phase to identify the next-generation information architecture, content, and branding needs.
A robust, flexible information architecture was essential to meeting the diverse needs of the organization’s various audiences, including current and prospective patients and physicians. It’s important considering the site serves the dual role of information portal and EMR-access hub plus special features for employees and board members. The overall goal was to present information in a tiered and structured manner with powerful search features that meet the needs of both casual prospects and active seekers of specific information and products.
The information architecture would also a feature robust cross-linking strategy to showcase related services content and drive interaction with relevant areas of the site. Korcomptenz also recommended an improved internal navigation hierarchy for second and third-level pages.
Improvements to the user experience then balanced industry-best practices for modern interface design including desktop, tablet, and mobile paradigms with the specific needs of the organization. The overall goal was to implement an elegant, engaging interface that showcases what makes the organization unique and highlights key features and content while allowing visitors to dig deeper regardless of the device they are using.
During the user interface and design process, approximately 100 pages of fresh content were developed to address all major service lines and programs. The process included:
- Meetings with key stakeholders to understand their unique needs and vision
- Multiple rounds of review
- Content in all other website sections was also edited appropriately migrating to the new site
In addition to the enhanced design and updated content, the site has all-new interactive features:
| Feature | Description |
|---|---|
|
Find a Physician |
An enhanced directory that enables users to search by keyword, better filter their results, better integrate with content on the site and choose from multiple layouts while searching for physicians |
|
Event Calendar with Registration |
An interactive event calendar that enables users to browse by events based on the day, week, month, or area of interest and search using keywords |
|
Enhanced Search |
Taxonomy and keyword-based search for more accurate results and predictive search capabilities |
Following the completion of the build phase of the main hospital website, the physician practice website was also redesigned.
Measurable Results
The combination of a next-generation website strategy, technology, and content-enabled the organization to realize all main goals for the project. The organization now reaps substantial benefits from:
Advance Website Redesign to Meet Client’s Business Goals
Contact us at [email protected] to learn more about how we helped the client with a website redesign.