PIH Health is a nonprofit, regional healthcare network headquartered in Whittier, CA, with three hospitals, a large multispecialty medical group and a robust post-acute care program. The organization has a large network of PIH Health physicians and more than 7,500 employees — and it keeps growing. With the recent acquisition of Good Samaritan Hospital, a 408-bed hospital in downtown Los Angeles, the organization’s network continues to build resources, expand coverage, and develop a sustainable model for delivering care in the area in the future.

With the acquisition, PIH Health wanted to reimagine its web presence and ensure the site tells a system-centric story in a consumer-friendly way. The organization partnered with their long-time agency, Geonetric, on the website redesign. The emphasis? Reimagined web content, particularly around the key service lines of cancer and heart.

Building the foundation for effective content

As part of the redesign, the Geonetric team reviewed the content inventories of both sites and analyzed them, provided consumer-friendly navigation label recommendations, and developed an overarching content matrix.

The team also revised the website style guide that then could be used by both Geonetric writers and PIH Health’s internal team to present a unified tone and voice throughout the site. This was particularly important as Good Samaritan Hospital content was woven in alongside PIH Health information.

In addition, keyword research for two priority service lines helped identify varied terminology used to search for specialists, medical conditions, and care services. This research was the basis for keyword portfolios, which the team relied on to develop user-focused content that answers searchers’ questions.

Early work on location strategy also proved invaluable. It helped the team to identify which services were delivered at the different hospital campuses. They then used that information to create user paths that connected service line content with location content, putting site visitors on the right track to receive care in the PIH Health network.

Set up with a solid foundation, the team took a deep dive into creating new content for the cancer and heart service line sections.

Sharing the story of accredited cancer care and comprehensive heart care

The new content enables PIH Health to highlight their ability to deliver comprehensive prevention, detection, and treatment right in the Whittier, CA, community. This includes calling attention to PIH Health’s Commission on Cancer (CoC) accreditation throughout the copy.

The Geonetric team wrote 11 new pages of new cancer content, with focused attention on readability and on-page optimization. New pages include Screening & Diagnosis, Cancer Treatments, and Survivorship & Follow-Up Care. The section takes a patient journey approach and meets patients where they are – regardless of if it’s prevention, diagnosis, treatment, or follow-up care.

The Heart & Vascular section highlights the flexible scheduling and coordinated care patients receive at PIH Health. With 11 pages of new heart and vascular content, including new content on Heart & Surgery & Procedures and Cardiac Rehabilitation, the section is more robust and maps more closely with a heart care patient journey experience.

Both sections of new content deliver on PIH Health’s goal of a consumer-friendly website experience and:

• Incorporate actionable language that connects patients to the next step in their journey
• Make it easy to take the next step by highlighting calls to action to drive user behavior
• Meet readability and accessibility best practices with content written at a 9th grade reading level, matched to PIH Health’s unique community
• Use a conversational and friendly tone consistently

Throughout, site visitors are reminded of the benefits of receiving care at PIH Health and the personalized approach the organization takes.

Driving traffic and engaging site visitors

Since launch, both sections are delivering. Compared to the same time frame last year, the Cancer Care section has seen a 702% increase in page views year over year with a 144% increase in organic traffic from 2020.

In terms of engagement metrics, the bounce rate for the Cancer Care section has decreased from 67% (2020) to 45% (2021). The page with the highest level of page views in the Cancer Care section is the Schedule Your Mammogram Today page, with 49% of the page views to the Cancer Care section. Data also show that key pages, such as Breast Imaging & Mammogram, are sending 50% of users on to related locations that offer mammograms, again focusing on PIH Health’s goal of connecting consumers with care options.

In addition, overall rankings for cancer-related searches jumped an average of 10 spots on Google’s results page.

For the Heart & Vascular section, the overall page views increased 228% year-over-year, with organic traffic increasing 181% year-over-year. The top pages in this section – the Heart & Vascular landing page, the cardiology page, and the surgery procedures page – are all driving measurable interactions. Most are going to a list of related providers, aligning with the patient journey and moving toward conversion.

For most health systems, traffic to the website from mobile users is skyrocketing. Whittier, CA-based PIH Health is no different. In fact, 62% of all web traffic to the integrated delivery system comes from mobile. And the top visited section by mobile users? Find a Doctor.

That’s why PIH Health decided to revamp its provider directory. The organization wanted to ensure its most popular section presented well on mobile devices, engaged mobile users, and made it easy for all users to convert.

Building Impressive Profiles

Since PIH Health had recently undergone a merger and consolidated with a physician group, the organization now had more than 150 primary care physicians to promote. As they worked with their agency, Geonetric, to build a new provider directory, they also took the opportunity to update the provider profiles.

When writing the doctor bios, PIH Health kept the read in mind at all time. Health consumers do a lot of online research and want to learn about their potential physician’s education, specialties, and certifications. However, reading about a doctor’s family and hobbies can also influence selection. Knowing this, PIH Health created biographies that highlight clinical expertise and offers information that helps readers get a sense of the doctor’s personality. To humanize their doctors even more, PIH Health also invested in provider videos. Site visitors can now watch a doctor describe their practice philosophy.

Going Responsive

One of the main goals of PIH Health’s redesign was to go responsive and ensure the website and provider directory automatically adjusted to a wide range of devices. After researching their mobile users, they opted against placing an appointment request form on their provider profiles and instead placed a large phone number at the top. PIH Health knew their target audience found filling out forms on their phones cumbersome, so the phone number worked best.

PIH Health also took a mobile-first approach to profile layout. Using design elements, the profile is broken into sections, keeping important conversion information at the top, while providing new and different value as the user moves down the page. This layout also encourages mobile users to swipe and scroll to learn more.
Mobile users are engaging with the changes. Since launching the redesigned provider profiles, PIH Health has seen an 182% increase in physician profile page views. The Find a Doctor section of the website continues to be the most popular with the mobile audience and has brought in more than 30,000 page views in the first six months since launch. In addition, the doctor videos average more than 1,100 views per month.

As one of the best-kept secrets in southern California, PIH Health wanted to spread the word about its outstanding staff, technology, care, and amenities. The non-profit regional healthcare network—an integrated delivery system—had recently formed through the merger of a hospital, physician group, and other entities. PIH Health knew the community wanted to hear about the many services newly available through a convenient, integrated network of care close to home.

An essential tool for communicating that message? Fresh content for the organization’s new, system-wide website. The content would need to not only promote clinical services, but also strengthen the connection to an ethnically diverse community, educate patients about health and wellness, and support fundraising and employee recruitment.

Getting Started

Geonetric talked with PIH Health stakeholders to identify service lines with opportunities for growth. Then, content writers interviewed doctors, nurses, and other medical professionals to get details about specific departments’ services, approach to care, and competitive advantages.

Before writing, Geonetric worked with health system marketing staff to establish a clear and accessible writing approach intended to reach the primary PIH Health audiences, as well as a warm and welcoming, yet authoritative, voice and tone. Writers used this approach while crafting 120 pages of new copy—including content for more than 30 service lines not previously represented online, as well as pages targeted to physicians and hospital visitors.

Engaging Users

All content directly addresses website visitors with an inviting style that focuses on the benefits of choosing PIH Health for medical care, a career, donating, or volunteering. Patient-geared pages highlight healthcare professionals’ expertise, trustworthiness, and personalized care, so a diverse community feels comfortable coming to the health system. Copy is readable by visitors of varying literacy levels. Relevant geographic keywords and alternative terms optimize content for search.

Most importantly, content drives users to convert. Because PIH Health’s audience includes many immigrants who prefer to communicate primarily through word of mouth, calls to action highlight not online forms, but phone numbers that users can easily share with friends and family who have limited internet access.

Educating Patients

An extensive content section about primary care, a growing service line for the health system, advises patients on choosing a doctor and describes the importance of preventive services. Users also learn when and how they should seek a second opinion. To help shift emergency-department traffic to urgent care, a new webpage—linked from the website’s main navigation—explains how patients can determine the right place to seek care for their condition.

As a healthcare marketer, helping health consumers make that connection with a doctor is important – but far from easy! And doing it on a website can be even more difficult. How do you showcase a doctor’s personality online in an authentic way? The key is to humanize the doctor.

Humanize the doctor

Just thinking about physicians makes a person envision white coats and sterile environments. Your mind is flooded with images of cold metal tables, getting poked and prodded, and you might even experience the feelings of being scared or anxious.

These are the exact thoughts and feelings you don’t want your health consumers to feel when looking for a new family doctor or specialist! The notion of humanizing medicine has been around for a while and works to combat that sterile, clinical feeling. The concept focuses on compassionate care and creating a real partnership between the doctor and patient. Instead of a business relationship, it’s a personal relationship and one that plays an important role through any health journey.

With so much of the condition and doctor research taking place online today, it’s important to take steps to humanize your doctors on your website.

Create powerful online provider profiles

Offering compelling and engaging online provider profiles is one of the best ways to showcase your doctors in a unique and genuine way.

PIH Health in Whittier, CA, does an excellent job using its online doctor profiles to create a compelling snapshot of its providers, helping site visitors get a real feel for what it would be like to partner with that doctor.

The key to success for PIH Health’s profiles is the way it shares useful information while still providing a personal touch.

As you can see in this example, site visitors are greeted with a smiling, professional image and immediately get a sense of the doctor. An engaging biography shares relevant educational and specialty information, while also providing personal details that help a site visitor identify and connect with the doctor.

A health consumer may or may not choose a doctor based on where they did their residency. But knowing that doctor also has two kids and likes the Lakers – well now those are things a potential patient can relate to! PIH Health’s profile also includes important office and location information, helping the site visitors determine if this doctor’s office is in the right part of the city for them.

As you scroll down, the profile shares more relevant information – like specialties, languages spoken, education, and certifications – and also includes a video, the pièce de résistance.

Bring the profile to life with video

Nothing brings a doctor to life online better than a well done video. PIH Health has recorded videos of its doctors sharing their practice philosophies. The videos are short in length – only two or three minutes, but go a long way to showcasing the doctor and his or her bedside manner.

So far 64 of the organization’s doctors have recorded videos and those videos average 1,150 views a month.

Now not every doctor wants to be in front of the camera, but every doctor does want to fill their schedules, so you can make the case why this is a great investment. Plus, the content marketing opportunities with a great doctor video are endless.

Have the right provider directory as your foundation

Compelling profiles are key to connecting doctors and site visitors, but having a sophisticated provider directory running behind those profiles is key to managing and presenting all that doctor data online.

Check out how PIH Health uses our VitalSite Provider Directory to deliver detailed profiles, offer impressive search capabilities, and effectively cross-promote doctors across the site.