Web Takes … December 2013 Picks

December 1, 2013

Virtual Tours

Checking out healthcare facilities in person is difficult and at best limited. Virtual tours fill this important role and have the advantage of providing details that a tour guide might not give.

The three reviewed organizations all offer virtual tours that provide full-screen viewing, 360-degree rotation with click and drag, a zoom func­tion, and explanatory text copy.

Roper St. Francis (www.ropersaintfrancis.com) features tours of its three hospitals and can­cer center, as well as several key service areas. Each tour includes enough frames that potential pa­tients can gain a thorough sense of the system’s facilities and operations. Visuals are outstanding, although load times can be long.

Holy Redeemer HealthCare at Bensalem (www.holyredeemer.com/Main/HolyRedeemerHealthCareatBensalem.aspx) features strikingly beautiful scenes. Visuals are loaded fairly quickly, and an auto-rotate function provides a full-room scan. Music plays in the background, which enhances the experience.

UCLA Health (www.uclahealth.org/body_sanmon.cfm?id=2168) also offers a visually ar­resting tour. Music plays and audio explains the room or service. “U” symbols on visuals can be clicked for additional information, which some­times is in video form.

MD Anderson Cancer Center – Physician Referral

www.physicianrelations.org
While hospitals know how critical referring physicians are to their suc­cess, few of them facilitate the refer­ral process online. That is certainly not the case at this organization, which is part of the University of Texas.

With a professional color scheme of black, white, and red, this site is un­cluttered and simple to understand. A large banner states “Guide for Referring Physicians” and has a visual of three clinicians. Below the banner are four headings that direct visitors to refer a patient, find a physician, select a guide, and follow us on Twitter. The guides cover 30 MD Anderson care centers, with each guide including a brief overview of the center and access to a PDF that provides details of the referral process and the physicians who specialize in that area. Visitors can also use the find-a-doctor tool, located on the centers’ landing page or accessible from the home page, to immediately find a referring physi­cian of interest.

To refer a patient, doctors must first sign up for myMDAnderson. Reg­istration then allows doctors to track exactly what is happening with their patients.

The organization’s main site at www.mdanderson.org – surprisingly – does not feature a prominent link to this stand-alone referral site.

Midwest Misfire

In 14 years writing this column, I have never written an outright nega­tive review. But a website for a large system in the Midwest, which will remain unnamed, has numerous failings from a design perspective that compel me to comment.

On the home page, a square banner features visuals that aren’t very inter­esting, and the headings that appear to the left of the visuals are too wordy and often don’t connect well with the images. Global links don’t expand, thus slowing navigation. A click on Medical Services brings visitors to a page where virtually all subtopical links are organized by facilities or major service areas, and nowhere can visitors connect to in­formation to address a key medical issue. Some sections of the site make full use of the rectangular monitor screen, which is difficult for the eye to easily absorb.

The site has solid content and func­tionality, but its design and usability shortcomings limit its impact.

Reviewed by Mark S. Gothberg