Website Tips for Clinics and Hospitals: Doctors List

Editor’s note: In this article, Alena explores in detail the Doctors List module and the related issues. If you need help with website implementation for your clinic or hospital, you are welcome to turn to ScienceSoft's team for healthcare web design and development services.

Doctors List: What is that for?

From BA’s viewpoint, Doctors List is one of the modules that drive website’s profit and success. The analysts have conducted dozens of studies on user requirements management and the behavior of medical service consumers in the online environment. According to the results, almost half of the consumers engaged in medical information search are extremely interested in the list of medical staff or in the chance to make an appointment with a particular specialist.

This phenomenon is easy to explain. A medical professional represents the quality, safety and the efficiency of one or another medical service that consumers may look for relevant information about on medical websites. This makes the Doctors List module an imperative commercial element.

How to arrange Doctors List?

Tip 1: Place Doctors List in the website’s top menu.

The analysis of website visitors’ online behavior revealed 2 main patterns of consumer behavior online. Half of the users focus on finding a particular specialist, while the other half makes their choice depending on the area of medicine (dental services, surgery, neurology, etc.) and by checking the availability of a specialist in a particular health-related center.

To meet the need of consumers who have adopted the first pattern of behavior, a website should enable certain features. The website search function should allow users to find a specialist by search strings and by scrolling a catalog of doctors’ profiles where all the medical professionals are arranged according to their medical specialty and type of medical practice (general practice, clinical study, medical consult, manipulation, etc.). Quite often, users spell a doctor’s name incorrectly, and the search fails because of the embedded spellcheckers that use predefined dictionaries and don’t respond to incorrect name spelling. To fix this, you will need a business intelligence software solution.

Tip 2: Embed doctor search options in the website search.

Another important part of your website strategy to facilitate catalog search. Your website requires convenient navigation system and Dynamic Filters that allow users to easily browse through related catalog sections. Current and prospective clients of your health-related center are most likely to know the doctors in person, so add distinctive photos to the web list.

Tip 3: Make your medical staff photos look nice and clear.

You can enhance the profiles by listing doctors’ working hours. On top of that, add a user-friendly appointment form that will also contribute to converting a prospective client to a loyal client.

Is “Ask a Doctor” a really useful feature?

Clients sometimes request to embed “Ask a Doctor” feature with the view to allow online visitors to contact a particular specialist with a question and get back the answer. Sounds like an excellent customer-oriented approach, isn’t it? But as our practice shows, this feature does more harm than good. It is crucial to take into account the specific nature of healthcare websites visitors’ need. They have already come across the problem, and they are looking for an effective solution. All their queries can be split into three main categories:

1. The questions that are taboo for doctors. A professional’s answer may be interpreted by an uptight patient as a diagnosis or prescribed medical treatment. In fact, any doctor’s online comment is in no way a trigger for actions unless a patient has already got a true medical prescription. A common online answer to an online question, which falls into this category, is to make an appointment with a doctor.
2. Doctors are usually busy, and they don’t have much time to solve organizational issues, i.e. working hours, emergency appointments, etc. There are managers who help online visitors deal with any such matters. It is better to use Live chats to contact managers, not doctors.
3. Personal patient data can be discussed with none other than the patient. Actually, clients may use “Ask a Doctor” feature to grab the advantage to get free doctor consult, which does not comply with the policy of medical centers.

Therefore, “Ask a Doctor” is a minor feature used be online websites visitors in a limited number of cases.

How to make Doctors List work for you?

A well-organized and user-friendly Doctors List can boost the increase in online visitors’ loyalty and dramatically improve lead conversion. To use your website to the full potential, provide your online visitors with the information they really want.

1. Prove that you have a large medical staff. The catalog of doctors’ profiles should provide an enhanced picture of how many highly qualified specialists in various medical fields you have.
2. Indicate the years of experience, educational level, academic and professional awards and titles of your medical professionals. It is a wealth of information, indeed. Create intuitive infographics to organize and visualize it.
3. Add the Doctors Introduction section where your online visitors will be able to get extra information about a medical specialist and his or her practices.
4. Integrate Doctors List with trusted reviewing platforms.

To draw the line, your paramount aim is the warmth of human communication that your online visitors really expect. Don’t turn your website into an Amazon catalog and make sure your visitors don’t feel like choosing a purchase item. You need to carefully work out the UX strategy in cooperation with website development and design specialists.