An effective healthcare intranet is supposed to be a central hub for internal communication and information sharing. But if employees are frustrated when using it — or even worse, avoiding using it at all — it’s time to take a closer look at whether your current intranet and platform are keeping up with your organization’s needs.
An outdated healthcare intranet can slow down employees’ daily workflows, create disconnects between locations, and make it harder for staff to access the resources they need.
If it’s been a while since you’ve refreshed your organization’s intranet and you’re unsure if it’s meeting your current needs, here are a few clear signs that you’re overdue for an intranet upgrade.
1. Frustrating user experience and navigation
A great intranet makes it easy for employees to find what they need when they need it.
But if yours has an ineffective search function, a confusing layout, a cluttered navigation menu, broken links, and slow loading times, employees won’t think of it as an essential tool — they’re more likely to view it as a burden.
A frustrating user experience can wind up causing your employees to waste valuable time hunting for critical information they need, like organizational announcements or human resources documents.
An intuitive, well-structured healthcare intranet, on the other hand, ensures employees can quickly locate policies, documents, staff directories, and other vital pieces of information without wasted time or energy.
2. Lack of mobile accessibility
Take a look around your organization’s hallways and do a quick survey — are the employees you see spending their days sitting behind a desk? Or are they on the move, going to help patients, traveling between facilities, and taking care of the essential tasks that keep your organization going?
An intranet that’s only accessible via desktop or laptop computer is fine for a typical office, but a healthcare intranet needs to be accessible from wherever employees are working. If your intranet isn’t mobile-friendly, employees can’t look up the information they need when and where they need it.
A modern healthcare intranet should be responsive and accessible on any device, ensuring all employees — even those without a dedicated computer or laptop — have access to the internal information they need.
3. No healthcare-focused features
Healthcare intranets, by nature of the work hospitals and healthcare organizations do, need to have features you won’t often find in a one-size-fits-all intranet platform.
Features like board extranets, news hubs, department directories, and continuing education class registrations can take your intranet to the next level with the features employees need to do their work and advance their careers.
4. Inefficient content management
An intranet is only valuable if the information it provides is accurate and up to date. If employees don’t trust the content because it’s outdated or hard to find, they’ll stop using it.
But for healthcare organizations dealing with small marketing teams, busy IT departments, and limited budgets, finding the time to make continuous updates can be challenging.
An effective healthcare intranet, on the other hand, should include a platform that allows designated users — not just IT — to easily update content, ensuring employees always have access to the latest information.
5. Low employee engagement
Perhaps the most glaring sign that your healthcare intranet is outdated is that employees do not want to use it.
If employees rarely log into your intranet or avoid it in favor of other apps, it’s a red flag that they don’t view it as a tool that’s essential for their jobs. The reasons behind low engagement or adoption can include an outdated interface, clumsy navigation, ineffective search, lack of interactive features and personalization, and content that doesn’t feel relevant to employees’ work.
Whatever the reason, if your intranet engagement has dropped, it’s time for an engaging and user-friendly site that employees will rely on as their go-to source for internal information.
Bring your healthcare intranet into the future with VitalSite®
Geonetric’s VitalSite® content management system is the key to turning your organization’s intranet into a must-use tool for your teams.
It’s perfect for health systems of all sizes, from organizations with a one-person marketing team that needs an easy way to make updates to growing systems that constantly need to add new users, content, and features to their sites.
With VitalSite, you’ll get:
- Easy-to-use templates
- A drag-and-drop sitemap
- Role-based permissions
- Publishing workflows
- Personalized content
- Form builder, healthcare CRM, and third-party integrations
- Healthcare-specific modules
- 24/7 remote monitoring and support
- Help when you need it!
Check out this case study on Holzer Health System’s VitalSite-managed healthcare intranet, and how it brought in more than 41,623 unique sessions, 79,000 pageviews, and 2,000 file downloads in the first two months following launch.
If your organization is in need of a refreshed, user-friendly intranet, the Geonetric team is ready to help! Contact us today for a free demo of VitalSite and learn more about how we can create an intranet your employees will actually want to use.
