Four Steps to Convince Leadership Your Healthcare Website Needs Improving

Step One: Dig into the Data

Before you go to your leadership team, know where you stand by creating a snapshot of the need for a change with your website. Start with research to define your website’s strengths and weaknesses, as well as what factors internally and externally affect it. There are a variety of tools that will help you extract the information you need to prepare your case for a website intervention. The four we recommend are:

  • Website analysis – Use valuable data from your website. Analyze your metrics, such as traffic and performance to make decisions about your need for website improvements or a full redesign.
  • SWOT – Asses your site’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. Defining your successes as well as your challenges will help you create an improved vision of your site.
  • Competitive analysis – Compare your current site to direct competitors or national healthcare leaders to drive home the message that your organization is overdue for some key digital investments. It’s ideal to consider competitors with similar models, competitive landscape, size and resources, as well as market leaders that drive digital trends.
  • UX Assessment – Review every digital touchpoint to uncover usability gaps and opportunities to improve your visitor’s user experience (UX). Providing a good user experience is one of the most important factors to achieving digital success, conversion rates, and ROI.

When buy-in is critical to your success, make sure, regardless of which tools you use, your data is clear and visual.

Step Two: Build Your Vision for Your Site

When you build your vision for your new site, you’ll need to bridge the gap from where you are today to what your site could be. Use the data you collected to highlight improvements for your site.

Do you need iterative change or a complete redesign? Would you benefit from a new content strategy? Are there features your website lacks in the competitive analysis? Use the data to outline how you should improve your website.

When defining your vision for the new site:

  • Engage key stakeholders – Understand their goals, as well as their vision and ideas. Not only will this help you build buy-in with important team members, but you’ll also ensure your efforts are aligned and focused in the right areas.
  • Outline your goals – Clearly define goals on how your website improvements will benefit your organization, healthcare consumers and internal audiences.
  • Define your vision – Create a short summary that captures what you “see” as the future of your new site. What might the site look and feel like? Why will it be better than what you have today? How will a new site improve conversions and ROI?

Step Three: Turn Data into Dollars

Once you’ve done your research and created your vision for the new site, it’s time to prepare to sell the value. Turn your data and plan into a picture that shows the value the organization gains with your suggested changes.

There are two parts to selling the value of the investment you’re asking leadership to make. First, show the value your digital efforts have delivered in the past. Then forecast the value the new site can deliver in the future.

For both elements of the value equation, the best answers are delivered by showcasing financial value. You can do this by highlighting your patient journey:

  • Engagement metrics – Start with gathering metrics on site traffic along with other engagement metrics such as length of time on certain pages.
  • Conversions – Conversions are great for showcasing value. Focus on the tangible conversions likely to result in a care encounter. These include click-to-call for scheduling, online appointments/requests, screenings scheduled, class registrations, etc.
  • Return on Investment – Completion metrics are the most effective to showcase to your leadership team. How much revenue has the website delivered? What’s the patient acquisition cost? What’s the return on investment (ROI) for the website and key digital marketing initiatives?

The goal is to try to get to return on investment metrics. If you’re having trouble defining revenue earned from your digital initiatives, watch our webinar for tips to overcome hurdles to measuring ROI in healthcare.

Step Four: Prepare for the Presentation

When it’s time to present your case to leadership, revisit the steps above. Share your data findings, your vision for an improved site, how you plan on achieving your vision, and how your new site will benefit the organization.

Depending on your audience, you may concentrate on one of these items more than the others, but be sure to show your team how making proposed improvements to your site could:

  • Reduce advertising investment and increase organic SEO
  • Increase visitor engagement with an improved user experience
  • Gain competitive advantage through superior digitally enabled experiences
  • Improve brand awareness, making it easier to acquire new patients
  • Increase brand loyalty
  • Meet organizational goals

Once you’ve completed these steps, you’ll not only be ready to present to your leadership team, but you’ll have a greater chance of getting the budget you need to start your website project.

Plan with Geonetric

Ready to start your website redesign project? Or looking for more tips? Contact us – we can help every step of the way. And if you’d like to learn more about VitalSite®, our healthcare specific CMS, sign up for a demo.

51 Award-Winning Medical Websites

When it comes to healthcare website design, it can be hard to stand out today. Design is important — you need to represent your brand. But it’s about more than design, and today’s marketers must consider everything from user experience to load times on mobile devices.

Check out these recent examples of hospital websites, content marketing hubs, landing pages, and blogs that received recognition for visual design, user experience, and technical development.


2022 Award-Winning Healthcare Websites

You name it, our clients won awards for it this year. Custom location landing pages, content marketing hubs, patient-focused content, digital marketing campaigns, site designs and more. Check out some of the best 2022 healthcare websites.

Concord Hospital

Concord Hospital, in Concord, New Hampshire, acquired two nearby community hospitals and integrated both hospital profiles into their main branded website. Their goal was to seamlessly transition and rebrand the two hospitals to operate as one system. To achieve this on their website, Geonetric created custom location landing pages for the acquired locations. These pages won a Platinum eHealthcare Leadership Award for Best Landing Page or Mircrosite, and a MarCom Honorable Mention award for Best Landing Page.

The organization also consolidated all its heart and vascular services into a single new entity — Concord Hospital Cardiovascular Institute. With most services available under one roof, the institute offers an integrated approach to treatment. For help generating awareness and attracting new patients Geonetric ran a digital marketing campaign that produced 450% ROI and won a Gold eHealthcare Leadership Award for Best Digital Marketing Campaign.
Concord Hospital Website

Montage Health

Montage Health, in Monterey, CA, turned to Geonetric to enhance its content efforts with a new content marketing hub. Geonetric built the new content marketing hub with a design that coordinates with Montage Health’s brand and brings its quality content to life.

Since launching in November 2021, the new content marketing hub has seen an impressive increase in clicks from organic search engine results pages and organic search impressions. The site won an eHealthcare Gold award for Best Landing Page or Microsite, as well as Platinum MarCom award for Microsite.
Montage Health Website

SightMD

SightMD began in Long Island, and now has expanded to 40 locations throughout New York to provide patient first, state-of-the-art eye care. They wanted to rebrand and create a new website that reflected its growth, unparalleled vision services, and patient care approach. SightMD turned to Geonetric to be their new website developer. Geonetric led their content and design strategy for their revamped new digital experience on our easy-to-use platform, VitalSite.

SightMD needed to create brand awareness and grow patient acquisition for all SightMD states. Geonetric’s content strategists created a scalable site navigation that easily accommodates regional expansion to different states and allows users to access all the services, doctors, and locations from the main SightMD homepage.

The new site took home two eHealthcare awards: Gold for Best Site Design & Platinum for Best Overall Internet.

SightMD Website

EvergreenHealth

To spread the word about its advances in the delivery of orthopedic services, and to be recognized for its clinical expertise, EvergreenHealth in Kirkland, WA partnered with Geonetric for a redesign and content overhaul.

Geonetric gave the site a modern look that reflects the health system’s cutting-edge care and increases their brand recognition for their clinical expertise. Seventy pages of extensive, patient-friendly content about orthopedic and sports medicine services were created by Geonetric’s content strategists and writers. Since the added content was published, traffic and user engagement has steadily risen.

In the first full quarter after the new site launched, EvergreenHealth saw improvements on many metrics, including total site sessions, organic traffic, pages per session, and bounce rate, as well as an increase in provider profile sessions. For this the site won:

Evergreen Health Website

Faith Regional

Faith Regional Health Services is a faith-based healthcare system in Norfolk, Nebraska. With target audiences searching for healthcare services on the go, Faith Regional wanted a website with a mobile-first design. Partnering with Geonetric, they redesigned the site for mobile users. Their new digital landscape provides mobile users with responsive and streamlined sitewide navigation, a layout that follows trends in mobile UX, and new functionality that uses geographic targeting for personalization. The site won an eHealthcare silver award for Best Mobile Website.
Faith Regional Health Services Mobile First

Cone Health

Cone Health is a not-for-profit healthcare network serving people in several counties in central North Carolina. As part of its employee recruitment efforts, the organization partnered with  Geonetric  on building an engaging, user-friendly website designed to highlight the benefits of working at Cone Health and make it easy to find a position and apply. The health system also wanted the microsite to support staff retention by providing resources for current employees to advance their careers.

Geonetric’s writers and designers created a new engaging and accessible microsite with streamlined navigation and content. Because Cone Health wanted the new site to target current employees as well as job candidates, Geonetric recommended moving employee benefit and wellness information from the health system site into the careers microsite. Both prospective and current employees now can visit just one site for all the information they need to manage each phase of their Cone Health career.

In the first quarter after the site launched, sessions nearly doubled, increasing 93%. The new job category pages are among the highest-viewed content and some of the biggest drivers of clicks to the job search page. This site won an Honorable Mention MarComm award for Microsite.Cone Health Website


2021 Award-Winning Healthcare Websites

The 2021 healthcare award-winners all let digital strategy take the leading role in meeting their users’ expectations and top their competitions. Read on for more details.

University Health

University Health, in San Antonio and Bexar County, Texas, launched a new website that delivers personalized content to target audiences and builds its brand as an academic health system.

The site, built on Sitecore, won:

University Health's Device Family

PIH Health

PIH Health, in Whittier, California, launched a new website that delivers its reimagined web presence to ensure the site tells a system-centric story in a consumer-friendly way.

The site, built on VitalSite, won:

PIH Health Family of Devices

EvergreenHealth

EvergreenHealth, in Kirkland, Washington, launched a new website with a data-driven strategy to meet the unique needs of their tech savvy community.

The site, built on VitalSite, won a MarCom Award for Website – Medical, Gold.

EvergreenHealth Family of Devices

Acclaim Physician Group

Acclaim, in Fort Worth, Texas, launched a new website that makes it easier for patients to find a provider using a new content management system (CMS).

The site, built on VitalSite, won a eHealthcare Leadership Award Winner for Best Site Design, Platinum.

In 2020, Acclaim received an honorable mention from the MarCom competition in the Website – Medical category.

different electronic devices displaying acclaim physician group's website

Fisher-Titus

Fisher-Titus, in rural Ohio, launched a new website with a modern design, improved navigation that helps site visitors easily navigate and understand the breadth of health services available throughout the Fisher-Titus medical center.

The site, built on VitalSite, won:

Fisher-Titus Family of Devices

Virginia Hospital Center

Virginia Hospital Center, in Arlington, Virginia, launched a new website to deliver a new responsive design and sitewide navigation with healthcare-specific functionality to make it easier to search for and select providers, locations, classes, and services.

The site, built on VitalSite, won:

Virginia Hospital Center Family of Devices

Avera

Avera, in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, launched a new foundation microsite and Intranet that were both user-centric and leverages the strength of their brand.

The intranet, built on VitalSite, won:

Avera Intranet Family of Devices

The foundation microsite, also built on VitalSite, won:

Avera Foundation Microsite

Mary Greeley Medical Center

Mary Greeley Medical Center in central Iowa, launched a new microsite for its William R. Bliss Cancer Center to strengthen the brand and highlight its differentiators when it comes to cancer care.

The site, built on VitalSite, won:

  • MarCom Award for Web Element – Microsite Information, Gold.

William R Bliss Cancer Microsite

Montage Health

Montage Health, in Monterey, California, launched a new website to enhance their digital presence to strengthen their brand as an innovative health and wellness system.

The site, built on VitalSite, won:

montage health family of devices

Ozarks Healthcare

Ozarks Healthcare, in West Plains, Missouri, launched a new website to create an inviting, easy-to-navigate website that communicates the full continuum of care and medical services.

The site, built on VitalSite, won a MarCom Award for Website – Medical, Gold.

Ozarks Healthcare


2020 Award-Winning Healthcare Websites

Streamlined designs, a focus on user experience, and improved functionality– particularly around the provider directory, are common features in many of 2020’s winners. Check out some of 2020’s best healthcare websites.

ProHealth Care

2020’s big winner was ProHealth Care. Headquartered in Waukesha, WI, ProHealth Care’s new site is built on Geonetric’s VitalSite, boasts a new, streamlined design and improved navigation, and was WCAG 2.0 accessible at launch.

The site took home many awards in 2020, including four from eHealthcare Leadership Awards: Platinum award for Best Site Design, gold award for Best Overall Digital Experience, gold award for Best Doctor Directory, and silver award for Best Internet Home Page. The site also received a gold award in the MarCom awards in the Website -Medical category.

multiple devices showing hospital website homepage

Silver Cross Hospital

Silver Cross Hospital, New Lennox, IL, consolidated numerous sites into one, built on the VitalSite content management system (CMS). With a pre-built theme as the foundation, the site was quicker to launch while still benefiting from decades of design, development, information architecture, and content strategy best practices. The theme is responsive, fast-loading, and accessible. The selected theme was modified to support Silver Cross Hospital’s unique brand and approach to care.

The site took top honors in the MarCom competition with a platinum award. It also received a silver award in Best Site Design in the eHealthcare Leadership Awards.

Silver Cross Website in different computer devices

 

East Tennessee Children’s Hospital

Headquartered in Knoxville, TN, East Tennessee Children’s Hospital is the only regional pediatric center in Tennessee accredited by the Joint Commission. Built on VitalSite CMS and showcasing a unique, custom design with detailed illustrations, East Tennessee Children’s Hospital’s new site engages site visitors with an intuitive user experience and improved functionality, becoming a celebrated new digital front door for the organization. The design also features custom graphics that bring unique artwork from inside the hospital to life on the website. The site received an honorable mention award from the MarCom competition in the Website-Medical category.

Grand River Medical Center

After recent mergers, Grand River Medical Center in Dubuque, IA needed a new website. The new site is built on VitalSite Essentials, a CMS platform developed with medical groups in mind — and improves the medical centers’ mobile experience with a responsive design. In addition, the site has an improved search and navigation, an updated provider directory, new user-focused content, and eye-catching calls to action. Grand River Medical Center’s site received an honorable mention award from the MarCom competition in the Website-Medical category.

collection of devices with hospital website

Ridgeview

Ridgeview is an independent, nonprofit, regional health care system serving the southwest metro region of the Twin Cities. Ridgeview’s new site is built on VitalSite and boasts a high-quality digital experience that is consumer-focused and user-friendly for all audiences across the Ridgeview system. The new navigation makes it easier for consumers to find services and resources. The site received a gold award from the MarCom competition in the Website-Medical category.

Mary Greeley Medical Center

Headquartered in Ames, IA Mary Greeley Medical Center is a 220-bed regional hospital that provides healthcare to residents in 13 counties. The new website is built on VitalSite and delivers an updated, modernized experience with dropdown navigation menus with icons. Through a hero video, eye-catching icons, and large fonts, the homepage highlights patient care, patient stories, and promotes the First Nurse Call Center. The site received an honorable mention award from the MarCom competition in the Website-Medical category.

Image of the homepage of Mary Greely Medical Center

Pacific Diagnostic Laboratories

Pacific Diagnostic Laboratories (PDL) needed a new web presence that offered a more robust location directory, engaging, patient-focused content, and made it easy for the PDL team to keep the site up-to-date. The Santa Barbara, CA-based organization worked with Geonetric to design and develop a more modern site on the VitalSite content management system. New navigation and content are audience-focused, and the site’s new location directory delivers important information to site visitors.  The site received a gold award from the MarCom competition in the Web Element-Microsite category.

Image of PDL Homepage


2019 Award-Winning Healthcare Websites

From journey maps to user research to accessibility, big winners from 2019 tackled important initiatives with their websites. Check out some of 2019 best healthcare websites.

Cone Health

Cone Health, headquartered in Greensboro, NC, launched a new site that remained true to their patient-focused values. Cone Health invested in research to better understand how users interacted with their website before the redesign as well as during development—which paid off exponentially. The site seamlessly integrates their access to care initiatives into the homepage banner, guiding users as they explore traditional and new care options.
The site, built on VitalSite, took home many of the industry’s biggest honors, winning Website of the Year from Modern Healthcare, platinum for Best Internet Homepage in the eHealthcare Leadership Awards, and was a finalist for Ragan’s Health Care PR and Marketing Awards. In addition, Cone Health’s site also took come gold in the MarCom awards in the Website-Medical category.

Multiple devices showing Cone Health web page

Cape Cod Healthcare

Cape Cod Healthcare in Hyannis, MA launched their new site in January of 2019. The organization invested in user research and took particular care with integrating their popular content marketing hub into the new, redesigned site built on the VitalSite platform.

The site immediately started winning awards, including Best Redesign from HITMC, silver award for Website Campaign of the Year from Modern Healthcare, distinction for Best Overall Internet in the eHealthcare Leadership Awards, platinum from MarCom in the Website-Medical category, and was a finalist for Ragan’s Health Care PR and Marketing Awards.

Three devices showing the Cape Cod Healthcare home page.

Adventist HealthCare

Headquartered in Gaithersburg, MD, Adventist HealthCare launched their new website in February 2019 on the VitalSite content management system (CMS). A patient journey approach was applied to every element of the redesign project, driven by content strategy and content development efforts that prioritized usability, conversions, and Adventist HealthCare’s brand.

The site took home impressive honors including platinum for Best Interactive and Best Internet Homepage in the eHealthcare Leadership Awards, honorable mention from MarCom in the Website-Medical category, and was a finalist for Ragan’s Health Care PR and Marketing Awards and HITMC’s best redesign.

Multiple devices showing Adventist web page

North Mississippi Health Services

North Mississippi Health Services includes community hospitals in six locations throughout north Mississippi and northwest Alabama, as well as a network of more than 45 primary and specialty clinics. The organization launched a new website on VitalSite that offers a patient-friendly experience, makes it easier to interact with the organization, and presents a unified presence for the system.

The system won two prestigious awards, including gold for Best Site Design from eHealthcare Leadership Awards and gold from MarCom in the Website-Medical category.

LMH Health

Having just rebranded from Lawrence Memorial Hospital to LMH Health, the Lawrence, KS-based health system launched a new website on the VitalSite CMS that demonstrated the breadth and depth of their expanded system.

The new site took home three impressive awards, a platinum in the Best Internet Homepage category and a silver in the Best Doctor Directory category, both at the eHealthcare Leadership Awards. The site also won a gold from MarCom in the Website-Medical category.

LMH Orthopedic page

MaineGeneral

MaineGeneral, Augusta, GA, launched a new site that presented a more unified system-centric approach to site visitors, improved functionality, and created more patient-friendly content.

The new site, built on VitalSite, received an honorable mention in the MarCom awards in the Website-Medical category.

Olmsted Medical Center

When Olmsted Medical Center (OMC), Rochester, MN, set out to redesign their website, they had traditional redesign goals like improving navigation and making the site more user-friendly and more mobile-friendly. The organization also had another, less-traditional goal: make life easier for the individual who manages all aspects of OMC’s website.

Built on VitalSite, their new site meets all those goals and took home an honorable mention at the MarCom awards in the Website-Medical category.

Olmsted page on iPad

Pella Regional Health System

Headquartered in Pella, IA, Pella Regional Health System took a mobile-first approach to their new site to meet the needs of their growing mobile audience.

The new site received an honorable mention in the MarCom awards in the Website-Medical category.

4 smart phones showing the Pella Healthcare mobile experience

Concord Hospital

Headquartered in Concord, NH, Concord Hospital’s new website puts the patient first, presents a new system-centric content strategy and works to expand their regional presence. Built on VitalSite, the new site received a gold from the MarCom awards in the Website-Medical category.


2018 Award-Winning Healthcare Websites

Each year hospital websites launch that take user experience to new levels, whether through design, content, or functionality. Check out some of 2018’s top performers.

Essentia Health

Essentia Health, headquartered in Duluth, MN, launched their new site in May of 2018 with a mobile-first design and industry-leading functionality that includes open scheduling for new patients and ER and urgent-care scheduling and wait times.

The site immediately started taking home top accolades from some of the most prestigious competitions in the healthcare industry. Essentia was recognized by Ragan’s Health Care PR and Marketing Awards as a finalist for their Website Launch or Relaunch of the year. This awards program seeks out the innovators in the industry and found one with Essentia.

Their website, built on the VitalSite® content management system (CMS), received a sought-after Modern Healthcare IMPACT Award, taking home gold for Website Campaign of the Year.

And finally, Essentia received platinum in the Best Overall Internet Site category at the eHealthcare Leadership Awards, which are given out every year during Greystone.Net’s Healthcare Internet Conference.

Firelands Regional Health System

Firelands Regional Health System, Sandusky, OH, redesigned with the hope of presenting a more consolidated brand experience to the market, as well as to move to VitalSite, a more user-friendly CMS. They didn’t set out to win awards, but with their new responsive site and integrated blog, that’s just what happened.

Firelands took home a Best in Class at the Interactive Media Awards, the highest honor bestowed by the organization. The site also received a silver for .

Mercy Medical Center

When Mercy Medical Center, Cedar Rapids, IA, redesigned their site in 2018, they employed user testing and heatmap analysis to drive redesign decisions and help them use the web to grow traffic to new and existing services with a focus on promoting urgent cares.

The prelaunch efforts paid off as Mercy took home two top honors, including a Best in Class from the Interactive Media Awards and platinum for Best Site Design at the eHealthcare Leadership Awards.

Sturdy Memorial Hospital

Sturdy Memorial Hospital, Attleboro, MA, needed to consolidate numerous microsites into one responsive site that offered improved functionality. And, they needed all this to be built on a more user-friendly CMS.

With their redesign, they achieved all of that and more, winning a 2018 Lamplighter Award from the New England Society for Healthcare Communications and an Outstanding Achievement from the Interactive Media Awards. In addition to the overall redesign, it was important to Sturdy Memorial to create a flexible landing page to use for campaigns — and that landing page went on to win an Honorable Mention in the MarCom Awards.

Stamford Health

With the goal of presenting a more unified system presence, Stamford Health’s new site streamlines Stamford Hospital, Stamford Health Foundation, and Stamford Health Medical Group content areas, improving navigation and the overall user experience.

The site delivers a modern feel with patient-centered photography and the home page took home platinum for Best Internet Home Page from the eHealthcare Leadership Awards.

Tower Health

Reading Hospital set out on a website redesign to align their doctors, locations, and brand — and they wanted a CMS that gave them room to grow. Everything was progressing well, and then right before launch, the organization acquired five community hospitals. Reading Hospital became Tower Health and they needed to update the site quickly — and thanks to the flexible design and navigation it was easy.

The new, consolidated site went on to win a Best in Class from the Interactive Media Awards.

Gundersen Health

An early mover in the content hub space, Gundersen Health, La Crosse, WI, redesigned their wellness hub in 2018 to refresh the design, add social sharing functionality, better incorporate video, and use panels to feature news and better promote providers. The new health and wellness hub is a hit with users as well as judges, with the site taking home a gold in the Digital Medical Website category of the MarCom Awards.

Genesis Health

Looking to promote their BirthCenter, Genesis Health, headquartered in Davenport, IA, created a landing page that shares family stories and lets site visitors take a virtual tour or create a birth plan. The landing page also promotes the organization’s expert staff and has fun interactive features and information, including the 2018 top Genesis baby names. The landing page received an Honorable Mention in the landing page category of the MarCom Awards.

Altru Health System

Altru Health System, located in Grand Forks, SD, was one of the first hospital websites to go responsive in 2013 and took that dedication to exceptional mobile experiences to a new level with their 2018 redesign. The new site features flyout menus and integrates their blog feed into the homepage and service-line pages. The site took home a gold in the Digital Medical Website category at this year’s MarCom Awards.


2017 Award-Winning Hospital Websites

Avera Health

Avera, headquartered in Sioux Falls, SD, has a storied history of creating award-winning marketing and design. And 2017 was a great year for their team.

They were the recipients of the prestigious Modern Healthcare IMPACT Award. This award recognizes outstanding healthcare marketing campaigns that are reinventing the way audiences receive and retain healthcare information. This year, they honored Avera Health with the award for Website Campaign of the Year for their main website, which is built on the content management system, VitalSite. The MarCom award competition also took note of their site, and awarded the organization a Gold in the medical category for their website.

This year the team invested in a new online hub to enhance their content marketing efforts and improve SEO. Site visitors aren’t the only ones who love this content marketing hub, it took home a Platinum award for Best Social Network from the eHealthcare Leadership Awards, which were awarded at the 21st Annual Greystone.Net Healthcare Internet Conference in Austin, TX.

Avera Balance Main Page

Gundersen Health

Based in La Crosse, WI, Gundersen Health serves patients in 19 counties across three states. They recently launched a new system-centric site and rolled numerous microsite into one, responsive health system site.

Gundersen Health System main page displayed on multiple devicesTheir site visitors aren’t the only ones that have noticed how impressive the new site is. The site took home a Best in Class accolade at the 2017 Interactive Media Awards.

In addition to the overall site, Gundersen Health created custom provider profiles with ratings and reviews to help site visitors connect and engage with their more than 1,000- high-quality doctors. The system’s provider directory recently took home a Distinction for Best Doctor Directory from the eHealthcare Leadership Awards.

Gundersen Provider Profile page

Spartanburg Regional Healthcare System

Prior to redesigning their homepage, Spartanburg Regional Healthcare System worked with our team to do some digging into user statistics. Using scroll mapping and heat mapping, they identified numbers areas for improvement, particularly around main and secondary navigation. They also found places to improve page load and site speed as well as adding more strategic calls to action.

The result? A new homepage that is visually engaging and user-focused. Since launching the new homepage design, Spartanburg Regional is enjoying decreased bounce rates and increase in mobile site visitors. And, they recently took home a Silver for Best Internet Homepage from the eHealthcare Leadership Awards.

Spartanburg Home Page

Cone Health

With an organizational focus on enhancing their content marketing efforts and embracing the “create once, publish everywhere” mantra, Cone Health reached out to their digital partner to help them create a new content hub. Branded Wellness Matters, the hub showcases many different content types, including videos, blog posts, and testimonials. Built in their healthcare-specific CMS, it also has a sophisticated taxonomy structure that allows it to filer by topic and content type. It also includes SmartPanels that pull in social media feeds. The hub received a Gold from the MarCom Awards.

Cone Health Wellness Matters Home Page

UNM Health System

Previously UNM Health System, associated with the University of New Mexico Health Sciences Center (UNM HSC), maintained separate websites for UNM Hospital, UNM Sandoval Regional Medical Center, UNM Medical Group, and other health care entities. Some sites had minimal information architecture and inconsistent navigational menus that could leave users feeling lost. And none of the sites referenced UNM Health System, a newly branded system.

That’s why they worked with us to create a new, responsive site offering a clear, consistent information architecture that makes the site easy for users to navigate and for the UNM HSC web team to manage. Creating a single, new website also provided an opportunity to rewrite and develop user-friendly content.

The new site received a Distinction at the 2017 Interactive Media Awards. The site’s new user-focused content didn’t go unnoticed either, receiving an Honorable Mention in the Web Content category at the MarCom awards.

UNM Health Main Page shown on multiple devices.

Rutland Regional Medical Center

Rutland Regional Medical Center is a regional system located in rural Vermont. The health system hadn’t redesigned in four years and was ready to modernize the site design and go responsive. The new, responsive site offers large hero images, clean navigation, and clear bold calls to action. It received a Distinction at the 2017 Interactive Media Awards.

Rutland Regional Home Page

UNC Physicians Network

UNC Physicians Network turned to us to develop a site that builds off of the already established digital foundation for UNC Health but gives their more than 50 practice locations a dedicated area for their story. The site received an Honorable Mention in the medical category of the MarCom awards.

UNC Physicians Network Main Page

Adventist Medical Group

How to brand a medical group is a top question facing many healthcare marketers today. For one award-winning example, check out Adventist Medical Group. The site features engaging provider profiles and custom location pages. The medical group also worked with us to create user-focused service line content. The site received an Honorable Mention in the medical category of the MarCom awards.

Adventist Medical Group Locations Hub Page

Asante

Blogging is a popular way to engage your target audience and help search engine rankings at the same time. Asante launched a blog to share special moments, health tips, and recipes with their Medford, OR community. The MarCom awards were impressed, giving Asante a Gold in the Social Media category.

Asante Blog home page


Award-winning design and development for healthcare

Award-winning web design and development is about more than just using eye-catching imagery or the latest trends in rollover effects. All of these healthcare organizations worked with Geonetric to ensure their sites not only bring their brands to life online but have a strong technical foundation that takes everything from accessibility to page load speed into consideration.
Ready to start your next award-winning project? Questions about anything you’ve seen here? Drop us a line. We love talking shop.

Reimagining the Healthcare Digital Experience

Healthcare has traditionally been optimized for the operations of the provider organization and the demands of payers. But future success requires a monumental shift and a new laser focus on supporting consumers in their healthcare journeys.

As a result, many healthcare organizations are reimagining their view of the digital experience and are building a true digital front door. To make it happen will require bold change and rethinking every digital encounter.

Download this eBook and get insightful guidance on building your digital front door, including how to:

  • Reimagine the digital experience and create a truly user-centered view of the healthcare experience as it exists today – and the experience people want in the future
  • Support patients and consumers in a personal, seamless way that makes communication consistent, enables self-service and prevents abandonment
  • Improve performance through data-driven operational changes across the enterprise
  • Reap the rewards in terms of patient acquisition, retention, and lifetime value

 

Download our eBook


Increase ROI With a Holistic Digital Advertising Approach

Developing an integrated digital marketing strategy involves understanding all aspects of the consumer funnel because each digital channel and tactic provides unique benefits at different points in the user journey. In this webinar we highlight how paid search, search engine optimization and business listings help you own all aspects of a search engine results page when all are considered equally.

Craft Your Organization’s Digital Front Door Strategy With Results From the 2022 Consumer Health Survey

Geonetric’s 2022 Consumer Health Survey Report helps healthcare marketers like you get new insights and see where you need to invest to stay competitive in 2023. This research is part of an ongoing initiative to better understand the preferences and perceptions of health consumers relating to their use of technology throughout the healthcare journey.

Consumerism has been a growing force within healthcare and healthcare providers are under more pressure than ever to meet the expectations of health consumers. At the same time, health consumers have a growing array of care options, many of which are digital or have digital components.

As healthcare systems work to craft their digital front door strategies, this information should help you address consumer desires and meet them where they want you to be.

2022 Consumer Health Survey

CRAFT YOUR ORGANIZATION’S DIGITAL FRONT DOOR STRATEGY

Download the results of our 2022 Consumer Health Survey

 


 

Discover consumer needs and meet them where they want you to be.


This research is part of an ongoing initiative to better understand the preferences and perceptions of health consumers relating to their use of technology throughout the healthcare journey. The report helps healthcare marketers like you get new insights and see where you need to invest to stay competitive.

Preferred Interaction Channels

Find out where the web, mobile apps and other tools are used in consumers’ healthcare journeys.

Personalizing the Healthcare Journey

Understand how consumers are researching health conditions and what information your organization needs to be delivering.

Top Factors When Seeking Care

Learn how patient loyalty has changed and what the most important factors are as patients make their healthcare choices.

“Patient-provider loyalty has eroded. Whether due to switching from one healthcare provider to another or increased splitting of care, 43% of consumers received care from a new provider or new health system in the past two years.”Ben Dillon, Chief Strategy Officer at Geonetric

Time for a New Web Partner: Planning for Change

It’s a project most healthcare marketers will only encounter a few times in their career. With more than twenty years’ experience launching hundreds of healthcare websites, we’ve seen it all — from the emergency “lift-and-shift” to a “burn the house down” approach. And while there’s usually time to plan, sometimes that’s not the case.

Whether you’re planning to change platforms or partners this year — or you want to be prepared for the unexpected — this webinar will shine a light on common blind spots and provide guidance for a successful relaunch.

Digital Ad Campaign Leads to Huge ROI for Cardiovascular Institute

Concord Hospital is a regional, acute care health center serving 150,000 people in the 30 towns comprising New Hampshire’s Capital Region. The hospital is home to a comprehensive cardiovascular program that draws patients not only from throughout the state, but also from New York, Vermont, Maine, Alaska, and Florida. It’s a critical, lifesaving program in New Hampshire, where heart disease is the second-leading cause of death.

In 2021, the organization consolidated all its heart and vascular services into a single new entity — Concord Hospital Cardiovascular Institute. The change was a fundamental reorganization more often seen in much larger medical centers, with a leadership structure designed to improve care and increase patients’ access to that care. With most services available under one roof, the institute offers an integrated approach to treatment.

Targeted Reach for New Patient Acquisition

For help generating awareness for the Cardiovascular Institute and attracting new patients, Concord Hospital worked with its web and digital marketing partner, Geonetric, on a digital advertising campaign. The campaign aimed to reach prospective patients ages 55 and older living in the Capital and Lakes Regions of New Hampshire. Geonetric’s paid media team recommended a channel mix between display and paid social while strategically advising not to invest in paid search due to the hospital’s strong organic presence, which has little to no competitive pressure. The advertising creative and copy leaned into core brand RTBs (reasons to believe) that focused on different aspects of the Cardiovascular Institute: provider expertise, the institute’s capabilities, the ease of receiving service, patient support, or the potential to improve quality of life.

Geonetric tracked two primary conversion points: clicks to call and “Request Appointment” form submissions from a landing page the hospital wrote highlighting a cardiac patient’s success story. To track appointments that patients scheduled and attended, Concord Hospital’s web manager worked closely with clinical stakeholders. Each time a user completed the online form to request an appointment, the marketing team emailed the information to a cardiology care coordinator. The coordinator contacted each patient to schedule a visit, and then reported back to the web manager how many leads resulted in new-patient appointments. By working together, Geonetric and the hospital were able to track conversions throughout the full funnel, from selecting and scheduling to keeping an appointment.

A/B Testing, Close Monitoring & Continuous Optimization

Geonetric ran new paid social copy early in each month, using the performance data from the previous month’s ads to direct the new creative. The agency also compared the performance of messages that focused on certain strengths of the institute. One version of the copy was the clear winner after the first week. At that point, most digital marketers would have stopped running other variations of the ad. But Geonetric’s paid media team continued to run multiple ad variations to give Facebook’s machine-learning algorithms time to respond to changes in performance due to ad fatigue. Over time, the early front-runner’s performance declined, and other ad versions rose to the top. Geonetric’s approach thus helped Concord Hospital make the most of its advertising investment.

For Google display ads, Geonetric ran new creative monthly, keeping the messaging and formatting consistent with the landing page. The agency used HTML5 to create high-quality, professional, animated creative in several sizes. Geonetric had an ongoing hypothesis they’d see the best performance from looping ads, which would let users see the animation on an ad that appeared “below the fold” even if they didn’t scroll down to the ad during the first six-second animation cycle. Testing proved that hypothesis correct, so Geonetric switched all non-looping display ads to looping ads to maximize performance.

The agency’s familiarity with Google display ads also helped Concord Hospital maximize target audience reach while avoiding violations of Google’s policy on health in personalized advertising.

For both display ads and paid social, Concord Hospital provided photos of their cardiologists, patients, and heart technology. A Facebook ad featuring a Concord Hospital Medical Group physician drew many positive comments from the doctor’s patients — powerful, free promotion and organic reach for the organization. Geonetric kept the imagery consistent between the Google display ads and social ads, but changed the photos regularly to keep the content fresh. Each new image typically increased ad performance. But when the fifth swap didn’t lead to the usual boost, the agency applied a more dramatic background to the photo of a cardiologist. This simple change significantly improved results.

Dramatic, Measurable Results

Concord Hospital initially contracted with Geonetric for a three-month campaign. But after seeing positive results, the hospital extended it to four months to take advantage of built-up momentum across the two channels. The hospital spent $22,323 on the campaign, which led to:

  • 32 conversions
  • 9 trackable new-patient appointments
  • $100,374 net revenue
  • 450% return on investment (ROI)

What Healthcare Marketers Need to Know about Google Analytics 4

Editor’s Note: This post was originally published in January 2021 when information on the timing of Google Analytics 4 (GA4) replacing Universal Analytics (UA) was limited. Google has since provided an expected transition date of July 1, 2023. After this date, UA properties will stop collecting new data. Beginning in January 2024, you may not be able to reference data from UA properties at all.

As a result, the move to GA4 should be a top priority for your team if you haven’t started. By making the change sooner rather than later, you ensure you have historical data available when you can no longer reference your existing UA properties. And in the words of the great philosopher Ferris Bueller: “Life moves pretty fast.” Similarly, exporting and saving needed historical data from UA should also be considered and prioritized. If you need help with this task or with safeguarding your data during the transition, please reach out for assistance. We don’t want anyone to lose access to information they’ve worked long and hard to create.

What is Google Analytics 4?

For eight years, the way you measure website traffic and behavior has remained largely unchanged. Google Analytics has been the broad standard, and while they’ve made changes and updates, the overall experience has been consistent since 2012.

Until now.

The version of the platform we all know and love was called Universal Analytics (UA) and was the third iteration of Google Analytics. Then, in October, Google rolled out a new update, GA4. Since then, the digital team at Geonetric has been testing the platform to understand how it affects healthcare websites and what impact it will have on your day-to-day data needs.

What has Google changed?

With this update, Google’s main goal was to make it easier to track users engaging with a website via both browser and app. However, there are changes to the platform—changes both beneficial and challenging—whether a website has a corresponding app or not.

Let’s look into the good and the bad – and what your next steps should be.

The good: Goodbye, bounce. Hello, engagement statistics.

Google is removing the concept of a bounce—a session that does not trigger a second action on the page—and bounce rate from its platform. Digital marketers often rely on that metric as a shorthand to measure user engagement with a given page, or even with a website as a whole, so it may seem like a loss. However, Google is using an Engaged Session and an Engagement Rate instead.

Engagement Rate is the percentage of Engaged Sessions vs. non-Engaged Sessions and the definition of an Engaged Session is any session that includes:

  1. The website or app in the foreground for at least 10 seconds
  2. A conversion event
  3. Two or more screen/page views

This change is particularly beneficial because you can now customize a conversion event to fit the on-page content and user experience. Whether or not there is a direct call to action present on the page, you now better understand how a page is performing.

Better understand your users with expanded event tracking

Additionally, Google is adding the number of data points available to digital marketers. When Geonetric launches a new website, we set up a robust amount of event tracking to ensure our clients have a more comprehensive picture of user behavior over a standard Google Analytics implementation. With the change to GA4, the amount of potential data points you can draw from our tracking has increased eightfold. This enhanced tracking requires set up to take advantage of, but is undoubtedly a great opportunity.

The bad: Missing features and historical data

Besides removing Bounce Rate and the additional set up necessary to take advantage of the new Event Tracking opportunities, there are a few additional challenges that come with GA4 as well.

First and foremost, it is still a new product, and there are a few areas—areas that we may currently rely on in UA—that are either not included or still in progress:

  • Filtering capabilities
  • View options
  • Internal reporting options

Sunsetting of UA

Further, as the future of Google Analytics, GA4 will be the standard. There is no set date for this change, though it will happen just as Universal Analytics supplanted Google Analytics 2. Currently, new Universal Analytics/UA properties can be both created and accessed. In the future, this will likely change, although no one knows exactly when.

Loss of historical data

The most considerable challenge is that data will not be contiguous between UA and GA4. The two iterations are so distant that GA4 does not carry over historical data from its predecessor. When you upgrade, the historical data continues to live in a legacy Universal Analytics property, while a new GA4 property collects information moving forward. This update will make comparing data month-over-month or year-over-year challenging until you have used GA4 long enough to have its own historical data.

Your next steps with GA4

Given the impending loss of historical data, the work needed to migrate event tracking into GA4 format, and the uncertain future of Universal Analytics, we recommend setting up a GA4 property and running it alongside your existing UA properties.

Doing this allows you to build up historical data and get your team and stakeholders used to the new platform, data, look, and feel before a hard switch becomes necessary.

If you’re looking for help, reach out to set up some time with one of our digital marketing experts to discuss the benefits and implications specific to your digital presence. We can go over the next steps necessary and get you started on migrating to the GA4 platform.

Applying a Consumer-first Lens to Your Healthcare Brand Architecture White Paper

Download this whitepaper on the importance of a consumer-first silo-systemization strategy and the common challenges it can help solve for hospitals and health systems of all sizes. You’ll learn tips for how to present your primary brand, sub-brands, and everything else your organization offers, including locations, services, and providers.

You’ll learn:

  • Tactics to understand your target audiences so they can find your organization online and enjoy a positive experience during digital touchpoints
  • Guidance to create your strategy—including when content silos are the right choice to represent your brand(s) online
  • When you should tear silos down and apply your system strategy to promote your services and locations

 

Download our White Paper