Workshop: How good is your hospital website? at Building Perfect Council Websites 11, 14 July 2011 #BPCW11 Speaker: John Fox.

1. HOW GOOD IS YOUR
HOSPITAL’S WEBSITE?
Can your visitors find what they are looking for?

2. Hospital websites have a diverse audience
¨ Patients ¨ Other NHS organisations
¨ Visitors ¨ GPs
¨ Staff ¨ Suppliers
¨ Strategic partners ¨ Jobseekers
¨ News media ¨ &etc

3. 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.

4. Top tasks
¨ Every website has a small number of
tasks that deliver a huge amount of
value to visitors. These are the top The final list of tasks should always be based
on hard evidence of usage – not just usage of
tasks. the website, but based on all forms of
¨ Each site will also have a huge customer contact with your hospital.
number of low value tasks (though still You will be able to build a picture of customer
useful) which probably get in the way access which will enable you to identify the
of the top tasks. top tasks.
¨ Focus relentlessly on ensuring that The next stage is to ensure that identified top
customers can complete their top tasks tasks can be completed on your website as
without encountering problems. swiftly as possible.
¨ Only then turn your attention to the
secondary tasks.

5. “What information
Customers’ top tasks would you expect to
find on your local
hospital’s website?”
¨ 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

6. Cancel an outpatient appointment
¨ Does Google lead me to the task? ¨ Can I cancel or request a new
¨ Does the homepage link me directly to appointment online?
the task? ¨ Am I told what will happen if I fail to
¨ Does an internal search return the correct attend my appointment?
result in the first three results? ¨ Is it clear how I might obtain assistance, if
¨ Is the task described in the A-Z? required, to complete this task?
¨ Does the service description page link me ¨ How effectively is this hospital promoting
directly to this task? this as a task?
¨ Does my first click take me straight task ¨ How do you rate the completion of this
completion? task?
¨ Am I informed how I can cancel or re- ¨ Was completing this task a ‘Wow!’
arrange my outpatient appointment? experience?

7. Nine hospitals examined
¨ Addenbrooke’s, ¨ Leeds General
Cambridge
Infirmary
¨ St Bartholomew’s, London
¨ John Radcliffe, Oxford ¨ Royal Victoria
¨ Manchester Royal Infirmary, Newcastle
Infirmary ¨ St Thomas’s, London
¨ Queen Elizabeth,
Birmingham ¨ Southampton General

8. 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

9. ‘Better connected hospitals’: highlights
Common failures Good practice
¨ Inadequate information for
patients
¨ Some great examples of
available car parking
Nightmare navigation
¨
facilities
¨ Unhelpful search results
¨ Clinical A-Zs ¨ Several sites provide
¨ Multiple hospitals, single domain very good infection
¨ Organisation-centric, lacks prevention & control
customer focus resources

10. Addenbrooke’s, Cambridge Hospital Task 1 Task 2 Task 3 Task 4 Task 5 Overall
“Generally OK for patients but little for Cancel Hospital Visiting Car Infection
visitors and assumes more knowledge about appt stay hours parking control
the hospital than might be reasonable. A bit 1
Addenbrooke's
Cambridge
V good Satis Poor V good V good Satis
confusing that it is under the heading of St Bartholomew's
2 Poor Satis Poor Poor Satis Satis
Cambridge University Hospitals when London
Addenbrooke’s is better known.” 3
John Radcliffe,
Oxford
Satis Poor Poor Satis V good Satis
Manchester Royal
4 Poor Poor Poor N/a N/a ‘Dire’
Infirmary
Queen Elizabeth
5 Poor Poor V good V good Satis Satis
Royal Victoria Infirmary, Newcastle Birmingham
“Evidence of effort being made to provide 6
Leeds General
Infirmary
N/a Poor Poor Poor Poor Poor
customer-focused information but it’s a bit Royal Victoria
7 N/a Satis V good Satis Satis Satis
hit and miss, particularly in subjects that are Infirmary, Newcastle
not specifically medical related such as car 8
St Thomas's,
London
V good Satis Satis Satis Satis Satis
parking or visiting hours. Couldn’t find out Southampton
9 V good V good Satis Satis V good V good
how to cancel an outpatient appointment.” General
!

11. “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.”

12. “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.”

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

14. 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.”

15. “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.”

16. Let’s discuss!
¨ 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?

17. Martin Greenwood
Programme Manager, Socitm Insight Socitm Insight offers a personalised service to assess
your website, individually, using all the techniques and
01926-498703
expertise developed over 13 years of our ‘Better
Email martin.greenwood@socitm.net
connected’ surveys in local government.
Visit www.socitm.net/insight
@socitm We offer a range of additional options to meet
individual requirements, eg identification of top tasks,
John Fox content readability and accessibility.
‘Better connected’ reviewer
Socitm Insight An alternative approach is to invite a critical friend
review with a Better connected reviewer who will visit
Email john.fox@socitm.net
you on site.
@x333xxx

18. Widescreen Test Pattern (16:9)
Aspect Ratio Test
(Should appear
circular)
4x3
16x9