Look who’s searching…
In today’s medicine, the web and social media are important and beneficial tools that should not be ignored. According to an article from amednews on Feb. 21, 2011, “New vital sign: degree of patient’s online access” by Pamela Lewis Dolan, searching for health information is the third most common online activity behind checking e-mail and using a search engine, with women more likely than men doing healthcare research.
A Harris survey conducted in January 2011 on behalf of Insider Pages, an online directory that has a “physician finder,” found that most people look for physicians based solely on their location. Patients starting with a physician finder normally do a query on physicians in a particular geographic area, and once that is generated, the patients will click on the profiles of the physicians they are interested in. This is then normally followed by the searching the profile page and then the physician’s personal web page if they wanted more information. The survey also noted that even though not all adults go online, the percentage of online health information seekers is at 59% of the total U.S. population.
Designed for Success…
In considering web design/medical website development, you should carefully consider what type of audience you want to attract. You may want to attract a certain type of patient, specific to your specialty, which will dictate how your design and website should be promoted. A plastic surgeon would certainly want to promote beautiful photos of before and after surgical procedure pictures, whereas a pediatrician may want to promote an “ask-a-nurse” component or brightly colored home page. Another consideration is the actual design. If you aren’t sure what type of design you would like to promote the practice, do some research and find other practices online in your same specialty.
“Googling” the simple phrase “Family Practice” for instance, will provide hundreds of practices with an online presence. Review them, making helpful notes to assist you in design. What was the first thing that caught your eye on their site? Did it seem professional? Were there any “special” effects such as flash animation, special links or other features you would like to incorporate in your website? Did the website allow patient interaction with the providers? How were the physicians highlighted in the website? Is it easy for the patients to navigate? Did they have a pleasing home page, highlighting the practice with easy to read information? Keeping a list of website links that contained special designs, features or undesirable attributes will help down the road when designing your home page or speaking to the web designers if you decide to use a professional service.
In respect to website content, this is obviously going to be specific to your practice and specialty. Some items to keep in mind globally would be using your practice name, address, phone number and any other means of contacting the office on each page. If you can, include a map for patients to find your location and a link to such as “MapQuest” or “Google Maps” that will allow the patient to print out directions to your practice.
Keeping the content fresh and updated is also a good idea for visitors to return. Information about sunburns isn’t really relative in the Midwest during a February snowstorm. If you are using a professional web design company, they will question you for interest in SEO or “search engine optimization” which is normally an additional fee to site design. By using the design company, they will “promote” your website by SEO optimization, which is done by paying special attention to descriptions and keywords making sure that your scores rate higher in ranking in search results.
There are many free analysis tools to track your site’s SEO performance, such as Yahoo! Site Explorer, Google Webmaster Tools, Google Analytics, SEO Book and SEO Chat that will give you a wide range of options to follow your SEO campaigns.
Legally Speaking…
Using a website for your practice is treated as advertising under the law, so any legal and ethical rules of advertising for physicians should be applied. One should also take into consideration any patient-physician-practice contact and the legal ramifications under HIPAA (Health Insurance and Portability and Accountability Act) and ARRA (American Recovery and Reinvestment Act) standards.