Workshop: How good is your hospital website? #BPCW11

HOW GOOD IS YOUR HOSPITAL’S WEBSITE?

Can your visitors find what they are looking for?

Hospital websites have a diverse audience

¨  Patients ¨  Visitors ¨  Staff ¨  Strategic partners ¨  News media

¨  Other NHS organisations ¨  GPs ¨  Suppliers ¨  Jobseekers ¨  &etc

No patients? No need for a hospital! ¤ A hospital needs patients

n  Inpatients n Outpatients

¤  Inpatients receive visitors ¤ Patients and visitors

should be the primary focus of the website.

Top tasks

The final list of tasks should always be based on hard evidence of usage – not just usage of the website, but based on all forms of customer contact with your hospital. You will be able to build a picture of customer access which will enable you to identify the top tasks. The next stage is to ensure that identified top tasks can be completed on your website as swiftly as possible.

¨  Every website has a small number of tasks that deliver a huge amount of value to visitors. These are the top tasks.

¨  Each site will also have a huge number of low value tasks (though still useful) which probably get in the way of the top tasks.

¨  Focus relentlessly on ensuring that customers can complete their top tasks without encountering problems.

¨  Only then turn your attention to the secondary tasks.

Customers’ top tasks

¨  Cancel an outpatient appointment ¨  Prepare for a stay in hospital ¨  Find out visiting hours ¨  Find out about car parking at the hospital ¨  Find out about infection prevention & control

“What information would you expect to

find on your local hospital’s website?”

Cancel an outpatient appointment ¨  Does Google lead me to the task? ¨  Does the homepage link me directly to

the task? ¨  Does an internal search return the correct

result in the first three results? ¨  Is the task described in the A-Z? ¨  Does the service description page link me

directly to this task? ¨  Does my first click take me straight task

completion? ¨  Am I informed how I can cancel or re-

arrange my outpatient appointment?

¨  Can I cancel or request a new appointment online?

¨  Am I told what will happen if I fail to attend my appointment?

¨  Is it clear how I might obtain assistance, if required, to complete this task?

¨  How effectively is this hospital promoting this as a task?

¨  How do you rate the completion of this task?

¨  Was completing this task a ‘Wow!’ experience?

Nine hospitals examined

¨  Addenbrooke’s, Cambridge

¨  St Bartholomew’s, London ¨  John Radcliffe, Oxford ¨  Manchester Royal

Infirmary ¨  Queen Elizabeth,

Birmingham

¨  Leeds General Infirmary

¨  Royal Victoria Infirmary, Newcastle

¨  St Thomas’s, London ¨  Southampton General

Could I cancel my appointment? Hospital Rating

Addenbrooke’s Very good

St Bartholomew’s Poor

John Radcliffe Satisfactory

Manc Royal Infirmary Poor

Queen Elizabeth Poor

Leeds General Infirm’y n/a

Royal Victoria Infirmary n/a

St Thomas’s Very good

Southampton General Very good

‘Better connected hospitals’: highlights

¨  Inadequate information for patients

¨  Nightmare navigation ¨  Unhelpful search results ¨  Clinical A-Zs ¨  Multiple hospitals, single domain ¨  Organisation-centric, lacks

customer focus

¨  Some great examples of available car parking facilities

¨  Several sites provide very good infection prevention & control resources

Common failures Good practice

Hospital Task 1 Task 2 Task 3 Task 4 Task 5 Overall

Cancel

appt Hospital

stay Visiting hours

Car parking

Infection control

1 Addenbrooke's

Cambridge V good Satis Poor V good V good Satis

2 St Bartholomew's

London Poor Satis Poor Poor Satis Satis

3 John Radcliffe,

Oxford Satis Poor Poor Satis V good Satis

4 Manchester Royal

Infirmary Poor Poor Poor N/a N/a ‘Dire’

5 Queen Elizabeth Birmingham

Poor Poor V good V good Satis Satis

6 Leeds General

Infirmary N/a Poor Poor Poor Poor Poor

7 Royal Victoria Infirmary, Newcastle

N/a Satis V good Satis Satis Satis

8 St Thomas's,

London V good Satis Satis Satis Satis Satis

9 Southampton General

V good V good Satis Satis V good V good

!

Addenbrooke’s, Cambridge “Generally OK for patients but little for visitors and assumes more knowledge about the hospital than might be reasonable. A bit confusing that it is under the heading of Cambridge University Hospitals when Addenbrooke’s is better known.”

Royal Victoria Infirmary, Newcastle “Evidence of effort being made to provide customer-focused information but it’s a bit hit and miss, particularly in subjects that are not specifically medical related such as car parking or visiting hours. Couldn’t find out how to cancel an outpatient appointment.”

“It’s a great looking website and somebody is evidently making best efforts to provide customer-focused information. For visiting hours and car parking the user experience is first class, and infection control only a little less so. For other aspects of the website though it’s a struggle. Task excellence is achieved partly by site design and partly a clear attempt to create an attractive and usable website.”

“Once you get into the site for the particular hospital it’s OK, but there is a real risk of losing one’s place, especially since some subjects are on the Trust pages rather than the individual hospital ones.”

“Very poor, indeed a dire user experience. All ‘patient/visitor’ information is lumped together in a single, rather unhelpful section.”

TWO opinions sought “Clearly no-one on the website team has a clue about designing websites for patients or visitors. It’s impossible to find anything useful.” “This is a terrible resource for the residents [of Manchester]. I really don’t think it merits even a ‘poor’ overall.”

“It’s ‘very good’ for me, the website just feels so user-oriented. Its not perfect, scope for improvement in a couple of places but as far as a patient/visitor resource is concerned it’s pretty much there. “I’d say the site navigation has been designed around what website users will need. “You have to use the website to see what I mean and then comprehend why I say that the concept of top tasks is embedded on the site.”

¨  How can we improve the overall customer focus of NHS hospital websites?

¨  Would a ‘mystery shopper’ national survey be welcomed?

¨  What best practice would you like to share today?

Let’s discuss!

Martin Greenwood Programme Manager, Socitm Insight 01926-498703 Email [email protected] Visit www.socitm.net/insight @socitm John Fox ‘Better connected’ reviewer Socitm Insight Email [email protected] @x333xxx

Socitm Insight offers a personalised service to assess your website, individually, using all the techniques and expertise developed over 13 years of our ‘Better connected’ surveys in local government. We offer a range of additional options to meet individual requirements, eg identification of top tasks, content readability and accessibility. An alternative approach is to invite a critical friend review with a Better connected reviewer who will visit you on site.

Widescreen Test Pattern (16:9)

Aspect Ratio Test

(Should appear circular)

16x9

4x3