Why Audit Your Site?

According to Hospitals & Health Networks' "Most Wired" report ("The Big Payback"), 100% of the "most wired" hospitals and 93% of the "less wired hospitals" have a Web site. For the overwhelming majority of these hospitals, a major reason for developing Internet capabilities was to improve communications and relationships with target constituencies: the community, consumers, patients, physicians, etc.

In our experience working closely with clients, healthcare Web sites can offer a hundred or more distinct features and functionalities for each target constituency. In addition, specific approaches to Web usability and functional design can have a dramatic impact on external Web volume, duration and return visits. In light of these facts alone, are you comfortable that you have optimized your external Web offerings?

The Web site audit provides key insight that is critical to improving user experience, both immediately and longer-term. Specifically, it can help answer a number of important questions including:

• Based on competitor and benchmark examples, what features and functionalities should be added or deleted?
• How should the graphic and functional design of the Web be enhanced or refined to meet strategic and business objectives better?
• Is the current Web infrastructure sufficient to achieve current and future objectives? How might it need to change?
• How should Web accessibility be enhanced? How might search engine optimization be approached?
• How should return on investment be measured for the Web?
• Based on competitor and benchmark examples, how well does the Web site perform?
• Does my Web site have any critical compliance issues that need to be addressed? (e.g., ADA)
• Does my Web site meet W3C standard?