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For other articles and previous issues click here. September 13, 2004 Surfers
& Seekers - What to Put on Your Hospital Web Site Experts say general health info is nice and helps build your hospital’s brand, but an effective Web site should focus on the specifics of conditions and treatments in line with your facility’s specialties. Beyond Radiology Many Americans no longer simply accept their diagnosis or prescribed treatment. After a visit to a doctor or hospital, many patients will go home, boot up their computer, and scour the Internet for as much health information as they can absorb. Approximately 80% of adult Internet users, or 93 million Americans, have searched online for at least one of 16 major health topics, according to a Pew Internet & American Life Project report released last year. In fact, seeking health information follows only e-mail and researching a product before purchase as the most popular online activity. These statistics are part of the reason why market-savvy hospitals and medical centers are offering more and more varied health information on their Web sites, as well as using health content as the cornerstone of their marketing plans and franchise building activities. Whether offering information on how to care for a loved one with Alzheimer’s disease or tips on low-carb diets, online and offline publishers are featuring more health information in response to growing consumer demand. Because creating and maintaining health information is resource-intensive, many healthcare marketers turn to third-party health content providers for solutions. Healthology Inc., a health content provider in New York City, works with Web publishers to enrich their sites through content and technology. There are many types of health content providers from which to choose. Different providers offer different content and deliver it in various formats. There are content providers that offer information on a number of subjects, including health news, health conditions, and health features, as well as medical dictionaries. Some provide video content in addition to text offerings. There are also several methods of delivering content to your Web site, including rebranded Web pages, XML feeds, and CD-ROMs. Healthcare providers use these content vendors to enhance their Web site or, in some cases, provide a turnkey solution that requires little to no maintenance. “We wanted to provide a one-stop shop for our visitors,” explains Dan Tushinski, Web marketing manager of the University of Illinois Medical Center in Chicago, who uses Healthology’s consumer health library. “While our clinical services provide treatment and care to our patients, Healthology’s content provides them with a tool to research their symptoms and ailments. “Quality information obviously reflects on how the University of Illinois Medical Center is viewed,” Tushinski continues. “If we merely provided a brochure site, we would not be doing justice to the reputation we have in the medical community.” The Health Seekers Healthology has had extensive discussions with partners regarding the nature and scope of the content to offer on their sites. One of its hospital partners jokingly mentioned that he was most interested in reaching patients who required some form of treatment and that this group rarely included healthy people. He only wanted to use condition- and disease-specific content and not offer any lighter fare. Another partner wanted content only about wellness topics such as exercising, nutrition, dieting, and skin care. The Pew Internet report indicates that people spend the most online time investigating specific diseases or conditions, or specific treatments and procedures, but that researching diet, nutrition, and fitness information is also popular. Based on these and other widely available stats, Healthology generally recommends that Web publishers build their brand on general information catering to all types of audiences but concentrate on conditions or treatments that are in line with their medical center’s focus. Research suggests that users are not gathering information merely for their own edification. These users take action based on health information they find. For example, a recent poll distributed across Healthology’s partner network revealed that nearly 70% of users felt that online health resources changed the way they were dealing with their personal health. A study published last March in the British Medical Journal demonstrates the Internet’s affect on cancer patients and reinforces the idea that users take action after obtaining information. Conducted by members of the department of primary healthcare at the University of Oxford in England, the study found that patients who had been diagnosed with cancer used the Internet to find second opinions, check their doctors’ recommendations, and seek information about symptoms, tests, and treatments. These users also found peer groups online that offered emotional support. “Cancer patients used the Internet for a wide range of information and support needs, many of which are unlikely to be met through conventional healthcare,” the authors wrote. “Cancer patients may use the Internet to acquire expertise to display competence in the face of serious illness.” Meeting Web Publishers’
Goals Some of Healthology’s partners said they were interested in linking with the Web sites of local organizations to increase their reach. “Our goal is to become a community service,” says Scott A. Phillips, a media/programming specialist at the Charleston Area Medical Center in West Virginia. “We want to attract local and regional traffic and have the chance to capture the attention of users within our health system to realize greater referrals.” Laurie Burt, a business development assistant at Nevada’s Carson Tahoe Hospital, agrees. “This is the age of technology, and the more information and services you can offer the consumer, the happier they are,” she says. “If they recognize your brand and trust the information they receive from your organization, they will most likely use your services and recommend you to family and friends.” Some hospitals and medical centers are partnering with news services, which operate like news wires used in print journalism, so they can offer more than hospital news. Remember that news services are great for keeping general health information “surfers” on your site but may not work as well for health information “seekers.” For example, if a patient has recently been diagnosed with cancer, he or she may be looking for information about treating and living with cancer instead of news stories about cancer. By contrast, a health library can function as a resource that allows users to learn about conditions relevant to their situation. For example, if your institution offers cancer treatment programs, offering breaking cancer news may not be perceived as providing a complete resource for patients. Many cancer patients will value information on diagnosis, treatment, and living with cancer much more than news stories about the latest study findings. Although offering news articles is an excellent idea, don’t forget that seekers use the Web to investigate a specific disease or medical condition above all else. With the proliferation of broadband connections, Web publishers are adding multimedia elements to their Web sites to capture and retain the attention of users for exponentially longer periods of time. Healthcare marketers that want to offer their online visitors a health library resource often turn to multimedia content providers instead of the typical text encyclopedias. Healthology provides newsmagazine-style videos called
Web casts as well as articles. Both the articles and videos feature
interviews with leading experts and are reviewed by in-house medical
professionals, as well as a network of medical experts from the
country’s top institutions. It also rebrands the content for
partners so it looks like the partner’s site and visitors
never leave the site navigation. Partners are provided with a rebranded,
searchable library that is divided into 60 therapeutic areas, each
offering a comprehensive selection of articles and videos, as well
as a rebranded media player, which users launch to watch videos.
Text transcripts are available from video programs along with links
to related programs. Integration and Tracking In addition to advising partners on integration, Healthology has made it a point to track how a partner’s Web site visitors interact with content. Healthology uses advanced Web-analytic techniques to track information such as the number of users who visit a Web site, as well as the titles of Web casts and articles those users request during visits. The techniques also provide the amount of time users spend reading an article or viewing a Web cast. “The right metric reporting is integral to the success of any Web site,” explains Dan Timoney, marketing director for Healthology. “Whereas in the past many decisions about content were based upon unsubstantiated ‘gut feelings,’ today we can refer to real numbers that allow us to measure which sections of a partner’s site are working and which aren’t.” Driving Users to Site The goals of growing a unique user base and generating high rates of repeat usage can be achieved through health newsletters and search engine marketing (SEM). According to Oxbridge Communications Inc., between 2002 and 2003, the number of online newsletters nearly doubled—from 2,500 to 4,949. Offering consumers periodic online and offline health newsletters is an extremely effective method of maintaining constant communication with your current and future patients. The sooner you begin offering newsletters, the faster you can build your base of subscribers. In addition to helping drive patients to your site, newsletters are also perceived as a valuable community service that can be offered on local and regional community sites. This will help capture the attention of potential patients. Newsletters should focus on providing consumer health information, not on internal news regarding the institution. Healthology sees high “open rates” on health newsletters, so it’s vital not to dilute the perceived value of the service by incorporating corporate information. Once users are driven to your Web site from the newsletter, you can feature as much information about your institution and other internal announcements and offers as you like. Keep your newsletter clean by offering disease and condition information, interesting facts, great articles, and other wellness topics. Search engines refer tens of millions of users to sites across the Web. The SEM goal is to ensure placement at the top of search results when relevant key words and phrases are queried. Web sites whose links appear at the top of search engine results pages receive more clicks and visits users seeking information. Most of Healthology’s customers want to understand SEM and how links to their sites can be included to appear in those results pages. There are three ways to have your Web site appear in the results pages of search engines: natural placements, pay for inclusion, and pay per click. Search Engine Marketing Search engine spiders crawl the Internet indexing and recording pages of content that they store and later regurgitate for users when various key words are queried. Achieving natural placements is a straightforward goal that is complicated in its execution. Each search engine is different and utilizes proprietary algorithms in gathering and storing pages across the Web. When developing an SEM strategy, numerous criteria must be taken into consideration, including the total number of content pages you make available. Other variables that affect natural placements include key words used in your site’s page titles and Meta tags—codes used to describe the content of your site’s pages. Pay for inclusion is just what it sounds like—a search engine charges a publisher to guarantee that its listing will be included in relevant searches. However, the position of your link and number of clicks your link receives is not guaranteed. The last method is pay per click, which works by bidding for top placement within search results. Each time your link is clicked, you pay the amount you bid for the listing. Many healthcare providers allocate a monthly pay-per-click budget. Most effective healthcare marketing strategies incorporate an orchestrated approach, which include all three of these SEM strategies. Other strategies might include Web affiliate programs and community outreach services where your objective is to have local sites integrate your editorial health content within their sites for the purpose of driving additional patients to your Web property. All these approaches should work in tandem with
content being distributed online and offline while uniformly promoting
the online Web property to garner more and more registrants. When
a marketer has determined what content is most useful and which
marketing strategies are most appropriate, they should see a marked
rise in their Web site traffic. At that point, healthcare marketers
will find that the Web provides the single largest opportunity for
capturing patients and expanding their franchise. — Steven Haimowitz, MD, is president of Healthology, Inc. |
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