Follow-Up: Is Third-Party Content Used Appropriately?
Written September 10th, 2007 by Thomas AmesWhen I look to make improvements on our own website, I often first consider what other organizations have done. Not even because what they’re doing could be right, but I want to see, in a consumer’s perspective, if what they’re doing is effective. Of course, as someone in the biz, I’m biased, but I try to consider what the organization offers the potential patient. That includes service line content, third party content, and calls-to-action.
In most instances it seems that third party content is misused. In my reply to the recent post Question: What’s the Role and Value of Healthcare Content on Hospital Sites?, I explored three reasons why third party content is misused: structure/integration, patient motivation, and the content itself. Not to reiterate my comments, but I’d like to explore further the first concern: structure and integration.
Even my own website does it wrong. And I know it can be done better. But how? I think these are questions many of us ask, and healthcare-specific web vendors have been keen to answer. But remembering back to the results of WebiScope’s 2007 Healthcare Management Survey from January, 18% reported no CMS used, and another 24% report a homegrown CMS. I would love to know whether these two segments, perhaps along with some smaller CMS users, make up much of the population that, in my opinion, misuses the content. For instance, is their structure so limited (and their resources so limited!) that it’s too difficult to integrate the content? I’m not sure, and I would love to see some insight from this population.
Getting back to the misuse, too many organizations’ websites are being overly supported by third party content. This means the organization has a largely anorexic, disengaging description for a service line, and then links to third party content that may or may not include a call-to-action or even a way back to the service line. Let me provide an example:
I’m a parent of a child who needs surgery to correct a head deformation. I, of course, see my child’s primary physician and get a referral, research the surgery, referral, and what other options we have (not only including the surgical/nonsurgical options, but also the facility options). I’ll go to the websites of many organizations. How will I ever make the decision?
First I need to FIND the information! If I don’t find it, cross them off the list. Then once I find it, I want to see that they’re reputable. I want to read how many of these surgeries they perform, success rates, and any complications. I also want to know any research, awards, or rankings they might have accomplished. If it’s between an organization that offers me these variables and one that just offers me a service line homepage that says, “We do surgical reconstruction for head deformations,” which one do you think I’ll more seriously consider? I think the choice is obvious.
What I’m finding on most websites, however, is the second approach. “We do this, that, those, and these.” And perhaps all of those services are linked… no, not to original content about the services, but to third party content. Misuse. Instead, there should be original content that’s supported by the third party content. Not third party content with inadequate or disengaging descriptions of available services.
The point to this post is that while third party content is important, it shouldn’t be looked at as the supreme resource that governs our websites or even is a primary resource for visitors. Instead, this content should be used not as a support structure for your service line, but as a resource for your service line. Unless you’re providing original content describing the service, it’s likely the visitor has little reason to contact the organization. And this is even more true should he or she see the same content at several different organizations’ websites.
In your opinion, are you using third party content appropriately? If so, how are you achieving this?
September 11th, 2007 at 12:47 pm
I think you’re going to find very, very few organizations using the content appropriately. The biggest reason for this is that most healthcare web teams simply aren’t staffed to craft original, compelling and useful content interwoven with strong calls to action. It is the best that most of us can do to get some cursory representation for the myriad service lines our organizations offer. Planning to develop it over time is great but priorities shift, sites need to be redeveloped, resources come and go… we all know the story.
We’re currently in the midst of redeveloping our site and the plan is to throw up a service line skeleton (supported heavily by third-party health content) and then work through an iterative update process – bolstering key service lines and hopefully, over time, working our way through the very long list.
Even an organization like Mayo that has the resources available to create great custom content manages to drop the ball when it comes to creating a dialog with the consumer.
The user scenario you mentioned above is typical of a new patient experience but to really engage that parent, you need great content, a well-designed site, useful tools and strong paths to ROI-tied calls-to-action. And then you have to accommodate the next user that has the same needs but is looking through your site in a completely different way.
What fun and challenging jobs we all have
September 11th, 2007 at 12:59 pm
I’ll respond in two ways: First, I don’t see any evidence that many patients are using health care web sites as Thomas describes. Certainly, it happens. But my experience in working with patients is that most follow their doctor’s advice, including what procedure to have, where to have the procedure and when. They may want more information on that procedure, but even when presented with volume and outcome information, most don’t understand it, or are hard-pressed to compare it to anything. I’m not arguing that it isn’t worth offering, and that the market may eventually change to where most, if not all, patients are doing that kind of comparison. But I just don’t think it’s happening yet.
In fact, in our market, every major site lists some kind of quality and outcome data, and everybody has absolutely wonderful things to say about themselves. How is anybody supposed to make a choice based upon that?
What health care needs is an independent and generally accepted group to evaluate and report on health care quality. We have a half dozen, and none are generally accepted. Then we’ll need patients to stop defining health care quality as price and how nicely they were treated by their nurse. I think we’re still a long ways off.
My second response is directly to Thomas’ question about how we’re using 3rd party content. I could spend a long time on this topic, but we have managed to link together the major content sections of our site, so there are easy links to and from each “bucket” no matter where you start or wind up. Since so much of our traffic was going to the health content already, we weren’t completely surprised when our conversion rate went up by almost one-third when we offered those linkages.
Neal
September 11th, 2007 at 1:38 pm
Isn’t the _right_ answer that we need to try to reach the greatest number of site visitors as possible with a broad variety of content types and tools? All set in a thoughtfully constructed site developed with the user’s perspective in mind.
Sure, not every person coming to the site is going to want and/or understand quality scores but numbers suggest that some people (~15% according to Forrester) do. And some people want to read clinical content about whatever condition their doctor has just diagnosed them with. And some of those people are going to drop off the site afterwards while others will want to find a specialist or a support group or simply directions to their next appointment…
The greater the variety and the more idiot-proof the structure, the greater the reach of one of your organization’s most valuable communication tools.
September 11th, 2007 at 1:38 pm
And then we should talk about how you balance the organization’s priorities against the needs of the user.
September 11th, 2007 at 2:13 pm
Markle, here’s a question that would perhaps make a good future blog: what’s the reason for a hospital’s website? Some thoughts below:
Is it to provide health content? With WebMD and other health content-related websites, is it necessary for us to provide a comprehensive database of knowledge? Should we make that a priority or a supporting role for our service lines?
Is it to provide a marketing avenue for our services? Should a hospital’s website focus on its services and doctors, attempting to cash in as much as possible, ROI-wise?
I think my biases are evident in this case: I choose the latter but while using comprehensive health content in a supporting role. I think with so many other comprehensive health resources out there, the focus of an organization’s website should be the organization itself. And, in doing so, it should provide some content to the visitors, but I don’t know if it’s as important as some organizations make it out to be or if they use it as I would deem as appropriate.
September 11th, 2007 at 2:19 pm
Neal, I’ll have to disagree with you to an extent. I think we’re living in the age of cyberdiagnoses whereby parents and patients are now at least superficially diagnosing themselves, and they do follow-up on their LARGE (meaning surgeries, expensive medications, multiple hospital trips) diagnoses online and by shopping services. With so many sources of information out there, it’s no surprise to my wife (who’s a nurse) or some friends (who are doctors) that more people are adamant about taking an active role in their care.. well.. if it hits them in the pocketbooks and isn’t an inconvenience, that is.
Another age I think we’re living in is the second opinion. More organizations are offering second opinion services which is a bit of a conundrum for we marketers, in my opinion. You advertise second opinion while you’re also advertising that they should come for our opinion and our opinion only, haha!
But I think both of these cases, in terms of bigger diagnoses that require many visits or a surgery, are evidence of why it’s so important to offer a more-than-adequate description of your service line, services, and statistics. (You’re right that two places saying they’re “innovative” in their treatments numbs the user, but I would also contend that if one place said they had a 95% 1-year success rate vs. the other organization’s 87% success rate, you can be sure that the patient will trust the former organization and perhaps override his or her doctor’s recommendation.)
Just some thoughts!
September 11th, 2007 at 4:03 pm
We’ll never have the resources to provide an exhaustive fount of original, compelling health content, so health care provider web sites will probably not become research destinations.
The advantage we have over WebMD and the like, though, is that we’re much more interactive. At our best, we can provide the opportunity for an online health- and wellness-oriented relationship with site visitors. With the thoughtful integration of actionable content, we can drive consumers to our services, and to expand that relationship offline, all in a region-specific manner that’s great for our communitites.
With a sharp eye on health care web user research, it’s incumbent on us to be strategic in what we place on our sites, to always keep patient benefit in mind, and to provide next steps alongside our content and features.
September 11th, 2007 at 4:36 pm
I wholeheartedly concur with Dan.