The Next Quantum Leap in

Healthcare Website Development

A White Paper by
Stephen Moegling
November, 2008
Franklin Street Marketing
 This white paper illuminates trends
in healthcare websites—those
quantum leaps that will shape our
future online experience.
By their very nature, hospital websites are robust, con-
stantly evolving entities—and quite often are the bane
of many hospital marketers’ existence. The launch of a
new website can feel like such an arduous task—akin to
pushing a noodle up a mountain—that many marketers
approach website development with the same fear as
one would feel cornering a hungry bear.
It’s understandable. Many marketers feel behind the
time with their sites, running to catch up with everyone
else but often come up short. We call this the “Chasing
the Kite” syndrome. If the body of the kite is the most for-
ward-thinking progressive web experience, many health-
The Next Quantum Leap in Healthcare Website Development
care marketers feel lucky enough to have a site that offers
even the “tail” end of the optimum user experience.
Which is why we wrote this white paper. We know the
profound significance hospital websites have in driving
patient volume. But we also appreciate that the process
for developing ROI-functioning, branded sites can be
overwhelming.
But before we look to the future, we should first appre-
ciate the past. In the brief but dynamic life of healthcare
websites, three profound changes, or quantum leaps,
have occurred in their evolution.
1
 For those of us still Quantum Leap 1: The Online Brochure
The first bona fide hospital websites from the early ’90’s were glorified
learning how to turn electronic brochures. In fact, most sites today still are. One could argue that
on our Blackberries, an intelligently designed website that makes it supremely simple to update
content for key services—and places value on constant updates—is a noble
let’s take a quick stroll goal for any hospital. In this regard, being “stuck” in Online Brochure-land
down memory lane isn’t necessarily a bad thing. But websites should be considered living,
breathing things—dynamic versus static. Capitalizing on the fluid nature of
to the first quantum websites should be the goal of any marketer.
leaps in healthcare Quantum Leap 2: Content is King
website development. The end of the ’90’s brought an onslaught of well-meaning but overwhelm-
ing content providers. Suddenly, hospitals felt the burden to be all things to
all patients. If someone wanted to research high level neurological disor-
ders, then by golly the hospital better have content on their site on high
level neurological disorders—even if the hospital had zero neurology capa-
bilities. But overlooking that small point, hospitals forked over big bucks for
health libraries and waited for consumers to use the content. And market-
ers waited even longer to connect the ROI dots on these expenditures.

The challenge with health content is twofold. Consumers go to sites like
WebMD and RevolutionHealth first for health content. So from the onset,
hospitals play second fiddle to these better known, “first awareness” sites.

The second challenge is that, until recently, third party health content
was darn near impossible to integrate with the rest of the site’s primary,
hospital-specific content. So even if you had a kick butt neurology service,
all that third party health content sat very, very far away on the site, making
it almost impossible for prospective patients to use primary and secondary
content in tandem. As a consequence, the content is less likely to convert
prospects into patients.

Quantum Leap 3: Patient Portals

A few years ago, responding to the dirge march of CEOs everywhere ask-
ing “Where’s the ROI?” hospitals got smart and paid big bucks for features
like online bill pay and patient registration. Usually done via the hospital’s
I.S. department, these patient portals started to connect the ROI dots.
(Someone just paid their bill on our site! That’s money! That’s ROI!)

This quantum leap for hospitals is noble. Consumers evaluate hospital

websites not by other hospital sites but by Amazon.com, Gap.com, Banko-
fAmerica.com—sites that have a leading-edge focus on turning clicks into
cash. So the ability to register for services online, pay a bill, or buy some-
thing from the online gift shop feels very contemporary to visitors.

Functionality is still an issue, though. Just because a hospital has a patient

portal doesn’t necessarily make for a good experience. And because these
portals typically originate with I.S., the lead time for implementation is
often months or years in the making. Unfortunately, these extended time
frames sometimes result in portals that are obsolete by the time they are
implemented. That kind of long fuse puts the hospital on the low end of
the web curve–and keeps marketers chasing kite tails.

The Next Quantum Leap in Healthcare Website Development 2

 That’s where we’ve been. Now, we’ll look
at the next set of quantum leaps that will
shape the future of website development.

Quantum Leap 4: The Brand Online

In the past, when hospital marketers talked about a “brand strategy,” they
meant television, newspaper or billboard advertising. The website had
its own strategy—like an island, off on its own. But marketers have come
to see that there is only one brand strategy that is executed across every
channel, and marketers are beginning to realize that the brand strategy
begins with the web.

To understand the importance of an online brand experience, we need to
look no further than how consumers are using the web as their first point of
reference. If we want information, we don’t need to call a toll free number
or visit the nearest hospital location. We simply type the hospital’s name
into a search engine.

The hospital website thus becomes the hospital’s storefront, the first
encounter a prospective patient may have with you. So, if the images look
dated, the experience is unpleasant, the information is incomplete, what
inference will your patients make?

One application of this quantum leap is the dedication of brand-building
messages and impressions right on the home page. Instead of littering the
home page with gobs of copy, hospitals are streamlining the home page
experience to emphasize brand first and content second. Most hospital
website user experiences are chaotic affairs; they land on the home page
and are instantly overwhelmed. Effectively branded hospital websites offer
a wonderful first impression, setting the tone for a long-term relationship
with prospects by letting them know they’ve come to the right place.

Hospital marketers are also branding their organizations for critical audi-
ences beyond prospective patients. In the past, recruitment efforts had
their own brand strategy and marketing campaigns. But marketers and
recruitment departments have come to see the power in developing one
hospital brand that cascades into multiple audience streams. Nowhere is
this strategy more effective than on the web. Most hospitals report that
job postings provide the highest traffic for a site. Creating a unified brand
experience online that is reflected in recruitment content is a powerful tool
for connecting with the best candidates.

The Next Quantum Leap in Healthcare Website Development 3

 Quantum Leap 5: Customization is King
If Quantum Leap 3 brought us “content is king,” then
perhaps the take-home message of Quantum Leap 5 is ROI!
“customization is king.” Meta tags and other technol-
ogy advances allow for hospital marketers to custom-
ize the entire website experience for users. And why
shouldn’t the experience be customizable? If we preach
that a person’s health and wellness is unique, shouldn’t
a website user’s experience reflect unique preferences,
interests and needs?

In the early days of HIPAA compliance, hospital market-
ers shuddered when they heard the word “cookies.”
Today, though, we know that HIPAA embraces commu-
nicating services to patients that could be of value to
them. In Quantum Leap 5, we see user experiences that
are continuously customized and personalized to their
wants and needs.

Imagine This Customized Website Experience:
You visit a hospital website and are interested in car-
diac services. Clicking on that service line page, you
immediately have access to hospital-specific cardiac
service information, along with promotions for upcom-
ing cardiac screenings and seminars, a list of cardiolo-
gists accepting new patients, and links to three or four Websites should provide the much lauded CEO ROI battle cry
cardiac-related health articles.

Imagine signing up for a cardiac seminar event and a
few days before the event receiving an email reminding
you of the date and time of the seminar.
Imagine returning to the hospital website to follow up
on what you learned about cardiac care at the seminar
and discover that the website has been formatted with
content tailored to you.
Imagine having a website experience that doesn’t frus-
trate you. Imagine a site in which you’re always a click
away from where you want to go next. Imagine a site
that doesn’t waste your time. Imagine a site that you’d
want to bookmark and return to again and again. That’s
Quantum Leap 5.
In this new dimension of healthcare websites, content is
still king, but it’s personalized content. In fact, in Quan-
tum Leap 5, hospitals still offer their own variation of
online brochures about their services—but the informa-
tion is presented in a fluid way, leaning on the strengths
of websites as ever-changing hubs of health and well-
ness resources tailored to your audiences.
There are four distinct forms of personalized content:
1 Consumer: In Quantum Leap 5, consumers use
technology to tailor the website to their interests.
2 Administrative tools: The creation of web-based
tools allows the internal marketing team to make
updates to specific portions of the site.
3 Personalized URLs: Personalized URLs, or PURLs, allow
marketers to create a unique experience for users while
tracking the types of content prospects are interested in.
This method is particularly effective in recruitment.
4 Patient Portals: Patient portals still play a vital role in
Quantum Leap 5, of course. After all, we want users
to book an appointment after they do their research
online and realize your hospital is best equipped to
handle their needs. This is true prospect to patient
conversion—the much lauded “ROI” battle cry we
get from our CEOs.
And to do all this in a clean, non-obstructive, pleasant
fashion? It’s hard to fathom a more positive brand expe-
rience than that.

The Next Quantum Leap in Healthcare Website Development 4

 Successful Website Development at a Glance:
The Who, What, When, Where, Why and How
Answering these six questions before embarking on your new website
practically guarantees a successful launch.

1. Who are your website audiences?

2. What is the ultimate goal of the site?
3. When do you want your site to launch?
4. Where do you want people to spend most of their time on the site?
5. Why should people go to your site?
6. How will you know you’ve built a successful site?

Tips for Pushing the Noodle Uphill (a.k.a Creating Your Next Website)
Don’t do everything at once. It’s tempting to jump in head first and want
to tackle everything with your new website. But this just about guarantees
frustration. Instead, decide up front what are the “Must Haves” and priori-
tize accordingly.

Then, set a timeline to phase in the other bells and whistles. As the saying
goes, websites are journeys, not destinations.

Service Line Stressors

The number one frustration we hear from our clients is their constant fight-
ing with service line directors who want their services to be most dominant
on the website.

We recommend developing a quarterly calendar that rotates key services

on the home page promotions. (Q1 is cardiac-focused, Q2 is orthopedics,
etc.) The calendar is dictated by the hospital’s strategic plan. Telling service
line directors “no” can be tough, so lean on a plan that prioritizes service
line promotion.

Don’t Despair if Your’re Still Stuck in the Bronze Age

The Internet has leveled the playing field for hospitals. Just because your
hospital is dwarfed by competitors doesn’t mean you can’t leapfrog your
competitors online. The key is to decide where you want to be, provide a
rewarding brand experience and have an implementation plan that includes
future phases of your website.

This way, instead of chasing the kite tail, you’ll be building a customized,
brand-building, ROI-driving website experience. Talk about a quantum leap
from your last website development process.

The Next Quantum Leap in Healthcare Website Development 5

 St. James Hospital and Health Centers
stjameshospital.org
An example of maximizing the brand online.

Prince William Hospital

pwhs.org—launches Spring 2009
An example of prioritizing service line marketing and
integrating primary and secondary health content.

The Next Quantum Leap in Healthcare Website Development 6

 Franklin Street Marketing has been building healthy
brands since 1986. Healthcare marketing is all we
do. And we do it for healthcare systems all over the
country. For you, that means a strategic marketing
partner with a short learning curve. For us, it means
another opportunity to make a difference. We’re
passionate about marketing strategies and creative
approaches that get results.

Learn more. Visit us at franklinstreet.com, or call us at

(800) 644-8555.

Stephen Moegling is Senior Vice President, Client Services.

He oversees the development of branding and strategic
communications planning for the agency’s client base.
E-mail Stephen at moegling@franklinstreet.com.

The Next Quantum Leap in Healthcare Website Development 7