The leading Boston area hospital enhanced access to healthcare information with a bold, new design.

Winchester Hospital is the leading provider of healthcare in northwest suburban Boston, but – until recently – their website was making it painful for them to live up to that reputation without a lot of extra work.

A New Direction Required an Updated Look

Recently ranked in U.S. News and World Report’s Regional Hospital Rankings as one of the best hospitals in Massachusetts, Winchester Hospital is a 229-bed facility that’s been providing healthcare to the community for over a century. When they approached Bridgeline about their need for a new website, they were in the process of a re-branding effort based on a strong new positioning statement: “Advancing Health, Advancing Care.” It was a new direction that embraced their role as a community hospital – with all of the personalized care and comfort that entails – but that was also dedicated to providing innovative, advanced treatments competitive with more recognizable metropolitan and national hospital brands. The effort coincided with the opening of a brand new Ambulatory Surgery Center and integrated Center for Cancer Care – two state-of-the-art, hugely innovative facilities.

To make the process complete, Winchester needed a website that expressed its unique combination of community hospital and leading edge treatment – and their collaboration with Bridgeline on design and development produced a truly unique site that is not only welcoming and engaging, but also technically sophisticated.

iAPPS Eased Winchester Hospital’s Pain Points

As pointed out above, prior to building iAPPS into their digital marketing strategy, their efforts to manage it were literally hamstrung. Their difficult-to-use content management system made it challenging to keep website content fresh, updated and relevant, and limited their ability to produce results. Navigation schema and poor search capabilities didn’t make it easy for visitors to find information, or even to complete simple tasks like registering for classes online.

“The time was right for Winchester Hospital to develop a site that provides an outstanding user experience and a look and feel consistent with our new brand promise, Advancing Health. Advancing Care. . .”

-  Mary Sweeney, Vice President of Strategic Planning,
Business Development and Communications.

To ease the overall pain, Winchester Hospital collaborated with Bridgeline on an entirely new web experience, built from the ground up. With user-focused design processes – including loads of end-user interviews, information architecture development, mood board sessions, user experience analysis, extensive keyword research and multiple design rounds, Bridgeline conceived a new website environment that would – and does – stand out against the competition.

The result is a bright, exciting and engaging experience, filled with the remarkably easy-to-use content management in iAPPS. Major structural and architectural enhancements make key information much easier to access, and offer site visitors service filtering by type and highlight key hospital programs such as outpatient surgery, maternity and women’s health.

The Bridgeline iAPPS Support Group was also consulted for a digital strategy engagement assessment and plan, and performed a highly detailed content audit and extensive content marketing consultation. They followed on with some content enhancement and SEO strategy development. Coupled with the innovative design – one that truly reflects the personality and commitment of Winchester Hospital – the site now breathes new life into the hospital’s online engagement – just months after the organization’s 100^th birthday.

“We are thrilled with our new public site. The time was right for Winchester Hospital to develop a site that provides an outstanding user experience and a look and feel consistent with our new brand promise, Advancing Health. Advancing Care. The content and functionality are smart and effective search engine optimization will mean more visitors to our site,” said Mary Sweeney, Vice President of Strategic Planning, Business Development and Communications. “The skill, expertise and experience of the Bridgeline team made all the difference, they really came through for us,” she added.

About Winchester Hospital

Winchester Hospital is the first community hospital in Massachusetts to earn Magnet® recognition, the American Nurses Credentialing Center’s highest honor for nursing excellence. As the northwest suburban Boston area’s leading provider of comprehensive health care services, the 229-bed facility provides care in general, bariatric and vascular surgery, orthopedics, cardiology, pulmonary medicine, oncology, radiation oncology, gastroenterology, urology, gynecologic urology, rehabilitation, pain management, obstetrics/gynecology, pediatrics and a Level IIB Special Care Nursery. Winchester Hospital has clinical affiliations with several nationally recognized hospitals in the region, including Boston Children’s Hospital, Tufts Medical Center and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center.

To learn more, visit www.winchesterhospital.org.

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