For creating a modern healthcare website that matches the frequency of a medical facility and healthcare providers, following certain healthcare web development best practices helps to produce an effective outcome. A website is a direct link to an organizations’ culture, services rendered, and the level of treatment offered, hence it’s worth the work to create an impression.
This article highlights seven industry best practices essential while creating a healthcare website.
1. User Friendly Interface For Healthcare Providers and Patients
User friendliness is one of the key factors for healthcare web development as this either makes or breaks a website. To make healthcare website user friendly, consider including essential details of organization such as logo, purpose or services provided by organization, and call to action buttons above the fold, where its clearly visible.
Ensure to create a navigation menu that’s easy to use for browsing through the healthcare web. While developing a healthcare web, design such that it suits all kinds of devices such as tablets, smartphones, and computers. Include layouts, image sizes, and aesthetics such that it produces the same authentic effect on all devices.
Patients looking for quick medical checkups, appointment bookings, or searching for a medical topic is likely to consider websites that offer these options seamlessly.
Fulfilling objectives and goals while designing a healthcare website also paves way for user friendly sites. For instance, healthcare websites created for only doctors accomplishes the purpose of connecting notable physicians in the vicinity and beyond.
We at Arkenea pushed forward with the challenge of redeveloping Welgo’s website, which was previously facing issues on poor execution, development, and architecture, thus leading to physician dissatisfaction. Arkenea remade the website that was easy to use, efficient, and streamlined for physicians.
2. Patient Centric Website
Consider involving inputs from patients, healthcare staff, and management to create a patient-centric website, audience reactions and feedback helps to create a healthcare website that’s focused on patients.
Ensure to avoid indecipherable medical acronyms, jargons, or text that’s not easy to read for patients, as some visitors have zero tolerance over it. Its recommended to keep website text to a level of high-school reading, rather than graduate or above levels.
Patients land on healthcare websites to look for answers to health issues, wellness, and medical solutions, hence consider offering these in the form of FAQs and blogs, hence, awards, recognitions, and advanced technology can be a secondary aspect for them.
Patients are more responsive towards reassurance, emotional support, and compassion, hence consider using words or images that align to this concept for engagement on healthcare websites.
Furthermore, improve patient experience by providing secure chat connections online, appointment bookings, easy access to bill payments and prescriptions through websites. This engages patients and also streamlines hospital workflows and communication processes.
Related: 7 Critical Considerations While Undertaking Website Design For Hospitals
3. Interactive and Responsive UX/UI Design
According to a research conducted by the University of California San Francisco (UCSF), patient – led healthcare decisions surged by 35 percent due to interactive healthcare website.
By including options such as virtual lab tours on websites, physicians and patients can be engaged immediately, for example, the virtual tour of Southeast Community College Radiology Lab displays how one image can consists of numerous instructional videos.
Further, by encompassing interactive floor plans and maps of a healthcare facility while healthcare web development, patients can easily get an overview of the organization, departments, and services.
Responsive healthcare websites boosts patient experience while browsing through the site; including images help to minimize anxiousness which is felt by children and adults during hospital visits. Educational videos bolsters interactivity further by providing necessary information on patient diagnosis and wellness.
4. Seamless Navigation
During healthcare web development, consider organizing information logically such that even new visitors who are unaware about the organization know where to click. Avoid listing services on the location pages, as this requires patients to click through every location page to avail the serve needed.
Short and specific headers are user friendly and gives a descriptive gist, for instance, links such as ‘find a doctor’ or book an appointment’. Furthermore, its recommended to include legal data, terms of use, site map, and policies at the footer of the page, rather than including contact details.
Consider using not more than seven menu items as this helps search engines to determine an authority via links. Cluttered navigation content results in diluting links, and seven is the ideal number for visitors to browse through – any more then there are chances of missing out on vital items.
Related: Guide to the Best Practices of Healthcare Website Design
5. Use of Compliance
HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act) and ADA (Americans With disabilities Act) are essential compliance requirements for ensuring healthcare web development best practices. Medical technology advancements and rise in medical data breaches has led to the adoption of HIPAA in the healthcare industry.
For healthcare websites dealing with ePHI (Protected Health Information), its recommended to secure website with HIPAA policies, failed to do so results in penalties and criminal charges.
HIPAA law mandates the protection of any health information that’s transmitted, maintained, generated, or used by anyone. Arkenea specializes in providing a HIPAA complaint web development that meet healthcare industry standards. For more information visit our website and read a detailed guide on HIPAA complaint app development.
Healthcare web development best practices for creating a HIPAA and ADA complaint website are –
1. Optimal use of text size and color for vision impaired individuals.
2. Use of color contrast for color blind and visually impaired patients.
3. Captions on videos for people with hearing impairment.
4. ePHI encryption while storage, transmission, and creation.
5. Partnering with HIPAA compliant software development company.
6. Patient Portals and Online Forms
Having a patient portal helps both healthcare providers and patients to connect with each other 24/7, thus eliminating the need to wait in office for hours or calls for basic issues.
By accessing health information in one place, providers can get a complete view of the diagnosis and advice treatment. HIPAA compliant patient portals and online forms maintains the security needed for ePHI. Based on the requirements, PHI security varies – storage, transit, or creation.
Furthermore, optimize patient intake online forms by asking for insurance information, add organizations’ branding to it, include e-signatures, open-ended questions, disclaimers, and revisit forms.
7. Customizing Healthcare Websites
As per a data by McKinsey, personalization or customization has the potential to bolster revenue by 15 percent. Customized healthcare websites helps to render more relevant information and engage people, thus leading to conversions. This is one of the key best practices during healthcare web development as it provides patients with what they’re looking for quickly, through links and services.
Customized healthcare web development allows to insert desired CTAs, images, and pages, rather than creating layouts that doesn’t meet healthcare industry standards. Furthermore, personalized websites allows providers to improve credibility for facilities, certificates or awards, and treatment provided.
Consider using implicit customization technique that includes pages visited, duration of onsite, geographical location, and more. Another way is to directly ask users (feedback) what they’re looking for and services needed, this approach can be used post gaining dominance in the healthcare industry.
Looking for a healthcare web development company that is HIPAA complaint and an expert in the healthcare sector, then connect with Arkenea – a top-rated health and technology company.