ACMH Hospital
Digital Strategy, Custom Website Design & Development
ACMH, Armstrong Center for Medicine and Health, is a comprehensive healthcare network that includes a hospital in a campus-like setting, specialists, primary care centers, and a foundation.
When ACMH approached our team, they had an outdated website that no longer accurately reflected their growth as an organization, their expertise, and their technology. Our strategic marketing, UX design team, and developers worked together to create a website that communicates the breadth of services and technology available at ACMH, better educates patients and caregivers, and improves the community’s confidence in ACMH.
Strategic Foundation
From our first meeting with the ACMH team, it was clear that this was more than just a community hospital. ACMH combines the personal care of a community- based hospital with the innovation, technology and expertise of larger urban hospitals in the Pittsburgh region.
As our team worked through constructing the new information architecture to support the site, we needed to address the challenges that currently faced website users. There was a misguided perception, for example, that ACMH only included the hospital. Many current website users were frustrated by the display of the location information for other offices and practitioners. For the new website, it was important to include Google Maps by each location listing to enable users to determine the convenience of each location.
Understanding User Needs
Prior to designing the website or determining the content that would appear on each page, our team explored the needs, expectations, and frustrations of ACMH’s wide user base. This step enables us to create messaging, build functionality, and craft a design that connects with each user type. We analyzed the demographics, goals, questions, and other contextual information for new patients, current patients, those seeking a specialist, friends and family of patients, donors, volunteers, and prospective employees.
Page Prototypes
Based on our persona development, it was clear that there would be several frequent user journey paths throughout the website. The design of these pages – including the doctor database, services, and locations – would need to adapt to highlight important content to help users take action. Our UX team wireframed these pages and more prior to design to ensure the information architecture and hierarchy supported the goals and objectives we identified in the strategy phase of the project.
Website Design
A modern, sophisticated design would reiterate one of the most important messaging objectives for the new site – that ACMH is more than just a community hospital. Our biggest challenge, however, was to convey the advanced services and treatments available at AMCH without sacrificing the personal touch of the community setting where ACMH operates. Our designers worked to strike the balance by incorporating both messages that supported the cutting edge treatments available and imagery that communicated a personal, dedicated team.
The current ACMH website utilized darker colors that unintentionally conveyed a somber sentiment. For the new site, our designers lightened up the palette by pairing the cyan sea-green color from the logo with lighter gray accents. Our team also strategically leveraged white space to help keep the design minimal and portray a clean, fresh visual feel.
Physician Directory
When users search for a new doctor they want to see a photo of the doctor and view credentials and specialties. Therefore, the physician directory was an important upgrade for the site. Users can search by name, specialty, or location.
The physician database integrates with other pages across the site to automatically display doctor profiles. This not only creates a cohesive user-experience but also simplifies back-end website population efforts for the AMCH admin team.
E-Greeting Card Module
During our site user persona exploration, we determined that friends and family of ACMH Hospital patients want to show their support, even when they cannot visit the hospital on a daily basis. The free e-greeting card website functionality enables loved ones to send e-cards to hospital rooms. Site users can choose from a variety of different card templates and add a personal message to the card to ensure their loved one feels supported.
ACMH can add new card template designs, assign and create card categories, and check new card request submits.
Resource Center
When our team developed website personas in the strategy phase of the project, we determined that one way to better engage current ACMH patients would be to transition the new website into a resource hub. Unlike many unreliable sources across the Internet, current and prospective ACMH patients could trust the articles available on the ACMH website. The resource center provides site users with starting point to begin their own research to help them take control of their health.
Users can filter by resource type, content categories, or search by keyword. On the back end of the site, ACMH can manage multiple layers of categorization and add new resources as they create content ongoing. Site managers and contributors can also mark resources as featured. Featured resources automatically display on the homepage to ensure optimal visibility and encourage engagement.
Donations
ACMH Foundation provides financial, educational, and human resources to community programs that foster awareness, understanding and creation of healthy communities. The donation section provides a quick, easy and intuitive way for site visitors to donate to the foundation. Simple PayPal integration enables users to donate with their account or through a credit card.
Events Calendar
ACMH organizes up to a dozen events every week to help patients and community members stay healthy and active. Events range from restorative yoga classes to grief support groups. The website needed to clearly communicate ongoing class or one-time event information including date, start and end time, location, and contact information.
Website visitors can view the calendar of events by month or drill down into specific categories that fit their interests.
Conclusion
The new website better communicates to users the breadth of services available throughout their many locations and empowers visitors to do initial health research within the resource center. The updated website supports the additional business objectives identified in our strategy including improving current patient experiences and acquiring new patients. We look forward to building out additional functionality such as a comprehensive locations database as we observe traffic data patterns overtime.
Questions?
We're always happy to hear from you. Use our contact form, or just give us a call: 412-353-1050
Start a Project
If you have a project in mind and would like a proposal, we'll need a few specific details. Head over to our project inquiry form.
Request a ProposalHow to Choose a Web Design Company
How do you know you’re selecting the right web design vendor? This guide will help you navigate the vendor selection process, ask the right questions, and select a strong partner for your digital marketing efforts.