How Does Our Organization Move from Silos of Web Content to a System Approach?

August 1, 2014

Ask the Expert with Ben Dillon

Health systems are complicated organizations, in large part due to constant mergers, acquisitions, and expansions. The challenge for marketers is to simplify this inherent complexity on the Web and provide consumers with a clear message.

It’s been a natural choice for many health systems to create an array of websites, with a separate Web presence for each individual hospital, facility, and clinic. This distributed approach gives each subsidiary the freedom to tell its own story. However, this approach often leads to content that overlaps, requires more resources for managing the sites, and prevents consumers from connecting to all of the information and services they need.

These problems have caused a growing number of health systems to reconsider their distributed architecture and instead move toward a more consolidated approach. They are creating one system-centric website that breaks down the information silos and presents a more comprehensive picture of the organization as a whole and its full spectrum of services.

Keeping Patients in the Network

One of the biggest benefits of a consolidated website approach is that it helps stop patient leakage. Patients build strong relationships with their local hospital or clinic, so they typically visit that local facility’s website first when looking for a class, service, or resource. If they don’t find the information they need, they may leave the site and turn to the local competitor.