Sentara Healthcare serves the two million residents of southeastern Virginia and northeastern North Carolina with a wide range of care giving sites, including six hospitals, nine nursing and assisted-living centers, and over 38 primary care sites. Sentara.com is the organization's main outlet for sharing general information with prospective patients and promoting Sentara's innovative approaches to improving healthcare. Considering the Internet's unique ability to connect with consumers, Sentara asked for Dynamic Diagrams' assistance in transforming their Web site from an online brochure to an informational and interactive resource.

Although intended for patients, Sentara's existing site was based on the internal structure of the organization and lacked cross-referencing between categories. In addition, the site did not account for the needs of different audiences: while some patients want to research a specific service across the organization (for example, all cardiac offerings), others are looking for facilities near their own city or town or want more information about a specific hospital. Furthermore, while Sentara had already started to add new interactive features such as electronic patient billing and online admissions, the organization needed to highlight them through a new information architecture and visual design.

After interviewing company stakeholders and external users, we discovered that most visitors came to the site looking for general information about Sentara's hospitals, services, and doctors, but found it hard to locate this information in the existing informational structure. Promotional content and news items — although helpful in differentiating Sentara from a competitor — were often intertwined with background information, which users found frustrating.

Our additional research activities, including an audit of available content and an internal usability assessment, revealed that related content items were often placed in separate locations. To see a complete list of services offered by a single hospital, for example, users might have to click to several different pages on the Web site. Based on our findings, we created a task-based architecture that helps users quickly find the information they need while encouraging multiple ways of browsing. In addition, key business processes are now presented higher in the architecture, addressing Sentara's goal of using the site as a tool for doing business with the public.

Related case studies: Enterprise Portal Planning Diagrams; Optima Health Web Site Redesign.

 See the Sentara Web site.