In the world of healthcare, there is no such thing as a one-size-fits-all marketing strategy. What works for one standalone hospital won’t bring in the same results for a massive health system. 

That same line of thinking can be used when it comes to digital experience platforms or DXPs. The tools needed by one healthcare organization to manage its digital experiences may not work for another. 

That’s where the concept of a composable DXP comes into play — it’s a way to ensure your organization only has to manage the unique set of tools it needs to streamline its marketing and digital operations. 

But let’s start with the basics. 

What is a DXP?

A DXP, or digital experience platform, is a system that is used to manage digital content, websites, and marketing campaigns. 

While it is similar to a content management system (CMS) in many ways, a DXP offers larger and more complex healthcare organizations a level of sophistication, personalization, and integration not possible with a standard CMS. 

What is a composable DXP?

A composable DXP like Optimizely One for Healthcare allows an organization to select the specialized tools it needs, like a CMS, a content marketing platform, digital asset management, and more, to create its ideal system.  

Think of a composable DXP like a set of modular living room furniture: when you’re initially shopping, you’ll choose pieces or modules that meet your needs at the time. As you redecorate or move to a larger space, you can add modules to make the set meet your changing needs. 

With a composable DXP, your organization may only need a CMS and a content marketing platform to start. But as you grow and evolve your digital experiences to meet consumers’ needs, you can add on personalization, web experimentation, and more. 

Why does having a composable DXP matter for healthcare?

Depending on the size of your team and the resources available to you, you’re likely juggling multiple marketing projects at one time, with little time left over to devote to training on new technology or managing a complex platform. 

With a composable DXP, you get to choose the tools that make the most sense for your team, your needs, and where your organization is on its journey of digital transformation and growth. If you don’t need digital asset management right now, but might in the future, you have the option to add that module in without looking for an entirely new tool. 

This flexibility and customization can save your team valuable time and money, and help to streamline your marketing operations and move you closer to meeting your goals. 

How do we get started?

The first step of adding a composable DXP to your marketing strategy is to partner with an agency that can customize your platform to fit your needs now and grow with you.  

Geonetric offers a composable DXP, Optimizely One for Healthcare, that our team can customize to create the best possible tool for your organization to use in meeting its marketing goals. Our team handles all of the building and onboarding, so all your team has to do is get to work. 

If you’re ready to experience the difference a composable DXP can make for your organization, contact our team today for a free demo! 

To learn more about DXPs and how they can help convert your prospects to patients, grab your copy of our latest eBook or revisit our recent webinar “Optimizely & Geonetric: Make Your Digital Vision a Reality.” 

The content on your organization’s service line pages is essential for engaging with patients, helping prospects on their care journeys, and driving appointment requests.  

However, healthcare marketers often face the challenge of balancing informative, accurate content with an easy-to-understand, patient-friendly tone.  

Check out these suggestions to help you craft service line content that connects with your audience while supporting your organization’s business goals. 

1. Consider your voice, tone, and style

Before you start writing, define the overall tone that you’d like your content to have. Does your organization’s content tend to skew clinical, with an authoritative tone? Or will your audience respond better to a more conversational tone, with a focus on care over clinical topics? 

For example, content about complex medical treatments may benefit from a more professional tone, while pediatric services might be more approachable and reassuring. Ensuring a consistent voice across your service line content helps build trust and recognition with your audience.

2. Determine your goals

What do you want this new content to achieve? Your goals should shape the structure and focus of your content.  

Are you trying to increase the number of appointments visitors schedule, improve search engine rankings, or introduce a brand-new or complex service to your patients? 

Clearly defined goals will help you create targeted content that delivers measurable results.

3. Reflect on your resources

Producing and maintaining high-quality service line content requires resources.  

Before launching into your new service line content, consider who will create it, who is responsible for making sure it’s updated and accurate, and if you need any external support to meet your goals. 

Knowing your limitations will help you create a sustainable content strategy that maintains accuracy and relevance over time.

4. Understand your audience

Effective service line content starts with understanding the audience you’re writing for.  

Think about who your target audience is — are you speaking directly to patients, parents, or other family caregivers? What questions or concerns are they trying to solve when they visit your website? What is the most effective way to deliver information to them? 

Using patient-focused language and addressing common questions directly in your content will make it more relevant and engaging, leading to a higher likelihood that the reader will choose your organization for care or schedule an appointment.

5. Interview internal stakeholders and subject matter experts

As part of your information-gathering process, be sure to talk to the people at your organization who work directly with that service line, like physicians, nurses, and administrative staff.  

You can ask them what information patients need to know when visiting the page, what questions patients or caregivers frequently have about this service, and what details might make their care journey smoother.  

This input will help you create content that’s not only accurate but also aligned with the patient experience.

6. Identify gaps or inaccuracies in current content

If you’re refreshing the content on existing service line pages, audit what you currently have to determine what’s outdated, missing, inconsistent, or difficult to understand. 

Updating and expanding content to fill these gaps ensures that patients get accurate, helpful information when they need it.

7. Check out your competition

Take a look at how other health systems or hospitals in your area communicate their service lines. Are they offering features or content you aren’t? 

Think about how their content is structured and designed, what information they emphasize, and how they position themselves as leaders in caring for that condition. 

Use this analysis to find opportunities to differentiate your content and highlight your organization’s unique strengths. 

Let’s get writing!

Writing service line content isn’t just about explaining your services — it’s about guiding your audience through their healthcare journey with clear, helpful, and engaging information. 

Check out an example of a service line content refresh in this case study for Rochester, Minnesota’s Olmsted Medical Center. 

If your organization could use a hand in the content department, our team of content experts is here to help. Reach out to us today to discuss your service line content goals! 

Patients are more likely to choose your organization when they see positive experiences from others like them. That’s where social proof — content like patient reviews, testimonials, and success stories — becomes invaluable.  

A well-executed strategy for gathering and sharing patient feedback not only enhances your organization’s reputation but also helps improve search visibility and patient engagement. However, asking for patient reviews and stories can be a tricky endeavor in the healthcare space, where patient privacy is paramount.  

Here are some best practices to help your marketing team collect and publish social proof responsibly and effectively.

1. Make it easy for patients to leave reviews

Patients are more likely to leave a review if the process is quick and straightforward. Streamlining the process increases participation and helps you capture more positive feedback. 

You can remove the roadblocks standing between your patients and them leaving a positive review in several ways, such as: 

• Including direct links to review platforms or a patient survey in post-visit emails, newsletters, or text messages 
• Keeping request forms short and straightforward  
• Adding QR codes to signage in waiting rooms or on patient forms encouraging patients to share their experiences online 

 2. Focus on timing

The best time to request a review or story is shortly after a positive interaction when the experience is still fresh in the patient’s mind. 

If you plan on sending review or feedback requests, try to do so within 24 to 48 hours of an appointment or discharge. If a patient talks about a positive experience or expresses their satisfaction in person, encourage staff members to direct them to where they can leave a review or share a story online. 

If a patient is enrolled in a treatment program or undergoing treatment for an ongoing condition, such as physical therapy, consider requesting their feedback after their treatment is complete so they aren’t inundated with review requests after each appointment.

3. Personalize the request

Patients are likely to ignore a generic review or survey request. Personalizing the requests you send makes patients feel valued by your organization and increases the chances that they’ll respond. 

You can personalize these requests with the patient’s first name, as well as references to their specific treatment, location, or care team.  

 4. Keep the tone friendly and light

Another way to increase the likelihood that patients will share their feedback is to keep your communications conversational and friendly. 

This tip goes hand in hand with personalization — if a patient feels like they’re receiving a message directly from their care staff asking them for their thoughts, they’re more likely to share their experience than if they receive a generic “tell us how we did” email. 

 5. Share patient stories

While reviews are helpful, detailed patient stories can be even more powerful. 

This method requires a bit more work from your marketing team, but is worth it in the long run.  

Get providers involved in identifying patients who had positive outcomes or a great experience with their care team, and ask them if they’d be willing to share their stories. You can offer multiple ways to share, from a written testimonial to a video interview, depending on their comfort level. 

On the marketing end, be sure to receive consent before publishing the story online. Once you have that consent, you can share these stories across your website, social media, and marketing materials. 

For fantastic examples of this, check out the patient-generated story hubs we helped create for Bronson Healthcare and St. Bernards Healthcare. 

 6. Respond to reviews — even negative ones

While you’ll obviously want to focus on soliciting stories and reviews from patients who had a great experience at your organization, not every patient will have a positive story to share. 

But even these less-than-desirable reviews are important to your brand and how prospective patients view your organization. Because of that, it’s essential to respond to all of the reviews you get online — even those that aren’t so positive. 

Check out our blog post on why responding to negative reviews is so important — and the best way to do so. 

Looking for support on your social proof journey?

Patient reviews and stories are more than just marketing tools — they build trust, strengthen your reputation, and influence prospective patients. However, for marketing teams dealing with limited staffing resources and budgets, gathering and showcasing social proof can be easier said than done. 

That’s where Geonetric can help! Our team of content marketing pros understand the best way to gather, publish, and promote patient reviews and stories. From building a dedicated testimonial hub to sharing tips on how to request reviews, we’re ready to help your organization tap into its most valuable marketing asset of all — its patients. 

Contact us today to get started! 

Healthcare marketers are under more pressure than ever.

They’re expected to deliver better results with the same, or fewer, resources.

But what if there were a smarter, more integrated way to work?

Watch this exclusive webinar from Optimizely and Geonetric where we explore how innovative organizations — inside and outside of healthcare — are transforming the way they create content, personalize experiences, test strategies, and optimize for outcomes.

You’ll walk away with illuminating info and actionable steps your team can take to streamline content, improve collaboration, and optimize digital performance — even with limited resources.

Effective employee communication is an essential component of any successful healthcare organization.  

When your teams are spread across multiple departments, locations, and even states — not to mention working in a fast-paced, high-pressure patient care environment — clear, consistent, and timely communication becomes even more critical.  

A well-designed healthcare employee intranet can help bridge communication gaps, streamline information sharing, build workplace culture, and improve overall employee engagement for your organization.  

If your employee communications have felt disjointed, or employees report difficulties finding the information they need, it might be time to revisit how your healthcare employee intranet is set up — if you have one at all. 

Let’s take a look at how a robust, healthcare-specific intranet can enhance communication and help your organization operate more smoothly.  

Centralize essential information

One of the biggest challenges in healthcare organizations is ensuring that employees have easy access to the information they need — whether it’s HR policies, patient care guidelines, emergency procedures, or a department directory. A healthcare employee intranet serves as a single source of truth, consolidating information in one easy-to-navigate platform. 

When you set up your intranet to be your organization’s go-to source of information, you’ll help cut down on the time employees spend looking for resources, ensure all employees have access to the latest policies, and eliminate issues with employees having access to multiple versions of one document. 

For example, if your HR team updates the employee benefits package, a healthcare intranet allows you to publish the new version immediately, ensuring everyone has access to the most up-to-date information and knows exactly where to find it. 

Improve internal collaboration

Running a successful hospital or health system is a team effort, and communication between departments is vital for outstanding patient care.  

A healthcare employee intranet with built-in collaboration tools like discussion boards, group messaging, and department sites allows employees to work together and share information more effectively, no matter where they’re working. 

Deliver real-time updates and announcements

In the fast-paced healthcare world, timely communication is essential. With a healthcare employee intranet, especially one that’s accessible from employees’ mobile devices, you can push real-time updates whenever needed. 

You can also customize your intranet to ensure employees see the latest updates with features like a homepage news feed, banner notifications, and more. 

Using your intranet to distribute policy changes or other must-know announcements allows you to notify staff instantly without the need for a lengthy email chain. 

Streamline onboarding and training

New hires in healthcare need to get up to speed quickly — and an intranet can simplify that process. By centralizing training materials, orientation schedules, and essential resources, you can help new employees feel confident and informed from day one. 

This is especially helpful for large organizations where the human resources department may be located in one location while a new employee is starting work in another.  

You can configure your healthcare employee intranet to have a dedicated onboarding section with checklists, FAQs, guides, important policies, video training modules, and more.  

A strong onboarding experience not only improves employee retention but also helps familiarize them with the intranet system so they’re ready to hit the ground running when they officially begin their job. 

Enhance employee engagement and feedback

Communication is a two-way street. A healthcare intranet allows employees to provide feedback, share ideas, and engage with leadership, creating a more connected and motivated workforce. 

Consider adding a feedback or question form to your intranet, along with employee engagement features such as employee profiles, an employee of the month program, and social features that allow staff to like or comment on posts. 

These features not only help boost morale and your team culture but can also improve communication and encourage employees to use your intranet. 

Get started on your healthcare employee intranet

Whether you’re looking to update your current healthcare employee intranet or start completely from scratch, Geonetric is here to help with the VitalSite® content management system. 

VitalSite is designed with healthcare teams in mind, allowing you to create an intranet that’s tailored to your team and the way healthcare systems and hospitals work.  

Check out this case study to learn how Holzer Health System used VitalSite and its updated intranet to provide timely, relevant information to its 2,400 employees during the COVID-19 pandemic. 

You can also learn more about the features of a successful healthcare intranet in our blog post on the top things employees are looking for from your intranet system. 

Ready to improve communication and collaboration at your organization with a VitalSite healthcare employee intranet? Contact our team today for a free demo! 

When thinking about redesigning their organization’s website, healthcare marketers often end up focusing on individual pages. 

But what if we zoomed out and took a look at the bigger picture? What if we considered healthcare websites not just as a collection of pages but a cohesive, scalable user experience that can grow and evolve as your organization does? 

The key to this mindset shift is building a comprehensive design system of reusable components, guidelines, and assets that make up your website’s visual identity. But that design system won’t just appear out of thin air — it requires structure, planning, and organization. That’s where the concept of Atomic Design comes into play. 

Atomic Design is a structured methodology that breaks down a website into smaller, reusable components helping healthcare marketers and web designers build scalable, consistent websites that can easily adapt to new content and features.  

Let’s explore how Atomic Design works, why it’s a smart approach for healthcare organizations, and how you can put it into practice using the VitalSite® content management system. 

What is Atomic Design? 

Atomic Design is a method for creating design systems where instead of treating a website as a collection of individual pages, you’re encouraged to think of a website as a system made up of smaller building blocks. This allows for greater flexibility, consistency, and scalability. 

Atomic Design breaks down into five key levels: 

1. Atoms 
2. Molecules 
3. Organisms 
4. Templates 
5. Pages 

Each level builds upon the previous one, creating a system where components can be reused, modified, and scaled without losing design integrity. 

Why Atomic Design works for healthcare 

Atomic Design provides several key benefits for healthcare marketers, including: 

• Consistency: Ensures that the design, functionality, and user experience remain uniform across all pages and devices. 

• Scalability: Allows new service lines, providers, and locations to be added without redesigning the entire site or starting a page from scratch. 

• Efficiency: Saves time and resources by reusing existing components and templates. 

• Flexibility: Makes it easier to adjust branding or functionality without disrupting the overall design. 

Applying Atomic Design to your healthcare website 

Healthcare websites are a complex collection of service lines, providers, locations, and patient resources that must provide a seamless user experience while remaining accurate and up-to-date. 

Atomic Design helps healthcare marketers simplify this complexity by creating a structured design system that allows for consistent, flexible updates. 

Let’s take a look at each building block of this design system, and how they come into play for your organization. 

1. Atoms

Atoms are the smallest elements of your website — things like buttons, typography, color palettes, icons, and input fields. On your organization’s website, atoms might include: 

• A “Schedule Appointment” button 
• Icons for service line categories 
• Text fields for searching providers or locations 
• Color schemes that align with your organization’s brand 

These elements are designed to be reusable and consistent across the site. For example, using the same button style for all calls to action helps patients instantly recognize how to take action.

2. Molecules

Molecules are combinations of atoms that work together to create functional elements. On a healthcare website, this might look like: 

• A search bar that combines an input field, a search icon, and placeholder text 
• A login form with email and password fields and a “Sign In” button 
• A location finder that includes a dropdown, map icon, and submit button 

Molecules help create consistency and make it easier for users to interact with your site. For example, every search bar across your site should look and function the same, creating a predictable user experience.

3. Organisms

Organisms are more complex structures made up of molecules and atoms that get you one step closer to the things users will actually see and interact with on your site. These are more complex but remain modular, including: 

• A navigation bar 
• A product card 
• The website footer 

By organizing molecules into organisms, you’ll get elements that can be scaled and reused across different parts of the site.

4. Templates

Templates define the structure of your website’s pages. They act as blueprints that determine the placement of content, navigation, and key elements — you may even consider them the “skeleton” that gives your website shape.  

Healthcare website templates might include: 

• A service line template with a consistent header, content section, and calls to action 
• A provider profile template with space for a headshot, biography, specialties, and scheduling button 
• A blog post template with a fixed layout for the title, content, and related articles 

Templates ensure consistency across the site while allowing for easy updates and adjustments. When new services or content are needed, you can plug them into your existing templates without redesigning the page or starting from scratch.

5. Pages

Pages are the final product — where content and design come together to create a complete user experience for your patients. For healthcare websites, pages can include: 

• The homepage 
• Service line pages 
• Provider profiles 
• Appointment scheduling pages 

By using the Atomic Design structure, these pages remain consistent and easy for you and your team to maintain. Updating a single atom (such as a button style) will automatically update it across every page where that button appears, saving time and maintaining brand consistency. 

Atomic Design & VitalSite 

Our VitalSite content management system is built with Atomic Design in mind, with features like flexible page layouts, reusable content panels, and dynamic SmartPanels to make maintaining your website a breeze. 

No matter what your marketing team’s size or budget looks like, VitalSite and Atomic Design can be used together to save time and money to keep your website current. 

Learn more about VitalSite and how it can transform the way your organization maintains its website, or read this client spotlight to learn how Rutland Regional Medical Center uses VitalSite’s flexible features and intuitive authoring to ensure its site is a valuable resource for patients. 

If you’d like to see firsthand how Atomic Design and VitalSite can benefit your organization, contact our team today for a free demo! 

A healthcare website redesign is a significant milestone for any healthcare organization. It’s the culmination of months of hard work from your first kickoff meeting with your digital agency to the moment your site finally launches. 

A new website should also usher in a significant improvement to your user experience, whether you’ve reorganized the main navigation menu, enhanced accessibility, or streamlined the way patients request appointments online.  

That’s why when you’re planning for your site launch, it’s important to include the people who will use it the most — your organization’s patients and employees. It’s not enough to simply publish the site and go about your workday, business as usual. You need to effectively promote your redesigned healthcare website to ensure patients, staff, and your community take full advantage of its improvements. 

Here are some strategies you can use to spread the word about your new healthcare website and drive engagement. 

Announce the redesign on social media

Your organization’s social media channels are a powerful tool to reach your patient and community audiences and generate buzz for your new website. 

Your posts can include before-and-after screenshots of your site, lists or infographics highlighting notable features, and even a short video walkthrough to help familiarize users with the new features or navigation. 

Send an announcement email to patients and staff

An email campaign that begins before your site actually launches is an effective way to inform patients, providers, and staff about the upcoming changes.  

You can use these emails to highlight key improvements and even personalize them depending on the recipient group. For example, you may want to send a campaign just to staff members that includes answers to questions patients may ask them about the new site.  

For patients, your emails can highlight how the new site will save them time looking for things like appointment scheduling, provider profiles, and emergency room wait times. 

For added engagement, consider sending a follow-up email a few weeks later to gather feedback on the new experience. 

Add a website pop-up announcement

When visitors land on your new site, you can have a pop-up explaining the site redesign and offering a quick tour showcasing the most significant changes. 

You can link this pop-up to a short video tour or even a blog post laying out how to navigate the site, the location of your most-visited pages, and other updates that might impact the visitor experience. 

For more tech-savvy users who want to figure things out on their own or don’t have the time to go through a tour, be sure this pop-up is easy to close and only shows up upon their first visit to your redesigned site. 

Update your Google Business Profile and other listings

Your website isn’t the only place where patients interact with your organization online. Ensuring your digital listings are up to date helps improve search visibility and patient trust.

If your redesign included any changes to your URL structure, you’ll want to ensure these new addresses are reflected on your Google Business Profile and other listings on sites like Healthgrades and Yelp.  

Engage your internal teams in promotion

Outside of your marketing department, your organization’s providers and staff members can also lend a hand in spreading the word about your new website. 

Be sure your support and front-desk staff are familiar with the website layout before it launches so they can help answer patients’ questions about navigating the new layout.  

For administrative roles, you can encourage people to add a note about the new website to their email signatures and even share pre-written (and marketing-approved) social media posts about the site with their online networks.  

If your website underwent a major redesign, consider holding internal training sessions to familiarize your team with the new design and features and how they can best communicate them to patients. 

Time to redesign your healthcare website? 

A successful website redesign is only as effective as its promotion. By leveraging social media, email, on-site announcements, and staff engagement, you can ensure your audience knows and benefits from the improvements. 

If your organization’s website is due for a refresh or a full-scale update, Geonetric is here to help. Check out some of our award-winning healthcare website redesign projects here, then reach out to our team for a demo of our website solutions! 

Not all content management systems (CMS) are created equal.  

Many systems on the market today are built to work — in theory — for any company, in any industry. But the healthcare space is unique, and often faces challenges that other industries don’t. 

If you’re researching new content management system options for your healthcare organization, you’re undoubtedly overwhelmed by the amount of platforms available. So why seek out one that’s healthcare-specific? 

Built by a team that understands your pain points

We designed the VitalSite® healthcare content management system (CMS) to help hospitals and health systems easily manage their websites, support marketing campaigns, promote providers, and increase service line volume. 

Our agency has worked with healthcare organizations for more than 25 years, giving us a deep understanding of the challenges you face in your day-to-day work, and the solutions that can make your life easier. 

Healthcare-specific features

When you choose a healthcare-specific CMS, you’ll have access to features and functionality that go above and beyond your standard content management platform to save you valuable time and resources. 

The VitalSite healthcare content management system includes features built to help healthcare organizations of all sizes, including: 

• Provider profiles and search 

• Location search and maps 

• Customizable profiles based on location type 

• A-to-Z service line listings 

• Calendar and event registration 

• Cards and eCards for patients 

• Clinical trials directory and sign up 

• Newborn photo gallery 

• Wait-time indicators 

When your CMS has healthcare-specific features built in, your team doesn’t need to spend time or money coding or cobbling together directories, provider profiles, or wait-time indicators from the features your platform does include. These features are ready to use from day one. 

A healthcare content management system designed with your team in mind

We understand that every hospital and health system’s marketing team looks different.  

One system may have an entire team of writers, web managers, and developers who can make website changes on the fly. Other organizations may rely on just one person to handle website updates — and if that person needs to work with the IT department or an outside agency to make changes, it can cost valuable time getting crucial updates online. 

With a healthcare content management system like VitalSite, content management is made easy with intuitive page authoring, flexible page layouts, reusable content panels, scheduled content publishing, and more. This makes maintaining your site a breeze, even if you’re a team of one with limited website experience. 

Of course, if you need extra support or have questions about changes you’d like to make to your site, VitalSite is backed up by our team of healthcare marketing experts to get you the help you need as soon as possible. 

Form creation made easy

Between appointment requests, staff training, patient classes, health and wellness events, and foundation donations, chances are you have a lot on your plate when it comes to online forms. 

The form builder in your standard CMS may not be able to keep up with the customization and security features a healthcare organization needs to keep its events running smoothly. 

In VitalSite, you get the Formulate form builder that allows for self-service form creation with data encryption and HIPAA-compliant audit logging. Whether you’re setting up registrations for a parenting class or completely refreshing the way your organization handles online appointment requests, Formulate makes it easy to build the forms you need, when you need them. 

Security

Perhaps the most important reason to move your organization to a healthcare content management system is security. There’s no hotter topic (or bigger stressor) for healthcare marketers than staying secure and compliant, and that’s something we kept in mind when building VitalSite. 

VitalSite is unique because it has security features like role-based permissions, secure files, and HIPAA and PCI DSS compliance baked in.  

We also provide 24/7 uptime monitoring and routine vulnerability scans to ensure your site is always secure and online for patients to find what they’re looking for. 

Experience the power of a healthcare content management system

We know the VitalSite CMS can transform the way your organization manages its websites, but you don’t have to just take our word for it — request a free demo today to see VitalSite in action! 

If you’d like to learn more about VitalSite before requesting a demo, check out these resources: 

• eBook: Your CMS Isn’t Working for You — Here’s Why 

• 4 Award-Winning Healthcare Websites Powered by VitalSite 

• Case Study: Redesign Builds Digital Front Door for Tech-Savvy Patients 

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. 

Your healthcare organization’s website shouldn’t be something you “set and forget” — continuous optimization is the key to keeping your digital experiences fresh, effective, and in line with patient expectations. 

Optimization allows you to experiment with different aspects of your website to identify the most effective changes that can help meet your business goals, like increasing the number of appointments patients schedule online. 

However, for healthcare marketing teams with stagnant budgets and limited staffing resources, keeping up a full-scale optimization strategy can be challenging. That’s where a digital experience platform (DXP) like Optimizely One for Healthcare comes into play. 

What is a digital experience platform?

DXPs take your basic content management system to the next level with tools that help you easily test new features, personalize a variety of website elements, and streamline content management, enabling you to create engaging, patient-centric digital experiences. 

Let’s explore how a digital experience platform like Optimizely can help you optimize your organization’s website, without the need for increasing your budget or team size.

Easily update key website content

Fresh, updated content is your first step to an optimized website. Whether you haven’t touched your website in ages or recently wrapped up a redesign, consistently updating information is essential to keeping patients informed and testing out what content performs best with your local audience. 

A DXP’s content management functionality makes it easy for marketers — not just developers — to update key elements, including page headlines, calls-to-action, and forms. 

Improve performance with A/B testing

Updating your site’s most important content shouldn’t occur in a vacuum. That’s why a digital experience platform’s A/B functionality is essential on your optimization journey.  

A/B testing allows you to experiment with different content, graphics, menus, and placement to see what resonates the most with your patients. For example, you may experiment with different call-to-action placements to see if they increase appointment bookings, or test two page layouts against each other to see which boosts engagement.  

By testing these elements against each other and seeing which performs better, you can make a data-informed decision about which change to make permanently to help improve conversion rates and patient engagement. 

Personalize the user experience for patients

Patients have different needs based on their location, age, medical history, and other factors — why show everyone the same content? 

With the personalization features in a DXP, you can highlight the closest clinic based on a user’s location, personalize homepage messaging for returning visitors vs. first-time users, and recommend blog content or services based on a patient’s past interactions. 

By tailoring content to the individual, healthcare organizations can create a more meaningful, engaging experience that keeps patients coming back.

Streamline media with digital asset management

A key piece to your website optimization journey will be refreshing the media on your organization’s sites — images, videos, infographics, etc. However, managing these assets across multiple platforms can be challenging. 

With a digital asset management system like the one in Optimizely, you can keep all of your media assets in one searchable, centralized repository that makes it easy for your entire team to find the latest version of a piece of content to post to your site. 

Take your healthcare website to the next level with a digital experience platform

A healthcare-focused DXP like Optimizely gives your team the power to optimize your website without relying on IT teams or waiting around for budget and staffing increases.  

From essential content updates and A/B testing to personalization and asset management, a DXP helps streamline your internal processes and create an engaging, effective digital experience for patients. 

If you’re ready to see what optimization can do for your organization’s website performance, engagement, and conversions, there’s never been a better time to explore the benefits of a healthcare digital experience platform. Contact our team today for your demo of Optimizely! 

Not quite ready to implement a DXP at your organization, but interested in learning more? Check out our blog posts on how a DXP can help growing healthcare organizations, the benefits a DXP can deliver, and how to choose between a CMS and a DXP.