Hurley Medical Center and Children's Hospital

Organizational and content challenges are overcome to produce patient-focused health center website

Since 1908, Hurley Medical Center has devoted itself to bringing innovative, leading-edge technology and medical services to Flint and Genesee County, Michigan. From expertly trained physicians and nurses to highly innovative technology to state-of-the-art facilities, Hurley is widely recognized as a medical center of exceptional excellence.

Strategic Commitment

In 2009, two years prior to the new site launch, Hurley made a strategic decision to build a new website portal whose purpose would be to connect each of the medical center’s microsites. The microsites were created to give detailed information on the Medical Center’s variety of medical specialties while complementing the bird’s eye view of the Medical Center which would be the focus of the portal website. The Hurley Children’s Hospital website was developed simultaneously and has a unique theme but shares its functionality with the portal website.

Hurley Medical Center’s previous website worked on a custom-built content management system (CMS) in which the existing content was technically locked in without an easy way to export it to the new site. Instead of trying to free the content, Hurley made the decision to build entirely new content so the entire website would be fresh to patients and partners.

Having successfully worked with Duo to developed the Hurley Bariatrics medical specialty microsite, Hurley turned to Duo for its main portal website. (For a more detailed breakdown of Hurley’s microsite strategy, read this case study on the Bariatrics specialty.)

Duo and Hurley confronted the following challenges:

• Create a site without the necessary content already in place

• Organize the information architecture for a large and complex site

• Gain board of directors and legal department approval for design, content & functionality

• Develop a dynamic website search functionality

Content Challenge

Perhaps the greatest challenge facing the Duo and Hurley teams was the absence of content. To completely refresh the content, Hurley hired freelance writers. The massive amount of content that required meant substantial delays before development could take place. Making matters more difficult, the writers needed to schedule time with staff physicians to interview—a formidable task considering the schedules of doctors.

Upon completion the new Hurley portal site required 795 pages of content, creating an information architecture that needed care and expertise. And of course each step of the process required oversight and often approval from the board of directors and legal department.

The Duo team worked closely with Hurley and its writing staff, planning one page at a time. Working with the resources available, the website implementation team creeped forward. Hurley’s portal site launched on October 15, 2011.

Achievments

Duo responded to the challenges facing the team throughout the course of the project.

• Duo was able to produce the essential wireframes & designs while the content itself was under development. Notable homepage design elements include a revolving banner and quick links to popular resources.

• Hurley’s portal site includes a primary navigation for overarching content topics like ‘Specialties & Services,’ ‘Your Health’ and ‘Education & Research.’ To connect with Hurley microsites, the top of the page includes navigation to external sites that stays consistent throughout the portal and microsites.

• Each important milestone of the development process gained approval from the medical center’s board of directors and legal department.

• Duo successfully implemented ‘find a physician,’ a multifaceted search ability that empowers visitors by allowing them to search by last name, full name, location or specialty. When they’ve completed their searches, visitors see brief content bullets about each physician returned by the search inquiry with links to more comprehensive bio pages.

Hurley Medical Center’s portal site can be viewed here: www.hurleymc.com.