There are two gigantic decisions hospitals make that have the greatest impact on the future success of their Web endeavors. One is picking the right personnel to lead the Web effort and the other is picking the right content management system (CMS).
In a future blog, I will talk more about picking the right people, but today, as I sit in the airport leaving a client who has the “wrong” platform I am inspired to blog about it.
Generally speaking, many hospitals and healthcare systems have a good working situation with their existing CMS, and that synergy fuels a good Web site. Rest assured there are a number of hospitals and healthcare systems that find themselves frustrated with the current platform and in a daily struggle to overcome the mismatch between their Web needs and their CMS. Picking the wrong CMS can really set an organization back in a scenario where re-engineering is expensive and very difficult.
In the healthcare vertical there are at least a dozen or two good platforms including open source options and vendor-based options, but they are all very different and varied in terms of what they can offer. The heart of this matter lies in making a good decision. Amazingly, some organizations take finding the right solution all too lightly. Decisions are occasionally made for the wrong reasons. I say this in a heavy-hearted way that is uncharacteristic of the way I like to blog, but I am distressed when I visit a client that is hamstrung by a tool that limits their ability to successfully leverage the Web for their organization.
I recently heard a hospital executive say “I don’t care which solution we pick, just pick one and let’s get on with it so we don’t delay our new Web site any longer!!” Yikes. I can only imagine what kind of position they might be in a year from now if they hastily pick the wrong core platform for the hospital Web presence — a mission-critical communication tool that puts a lot of weight on communications efficiency, accuracy, and format. Imagine hastily deciding to buy a piece of clinical equipment or a major IT system.
I often hear senior executives push back on a selection process that “takes too long” and I certainly don’t encourage a process that is unnecessarily lengthy, but the decision is ultimately so critical to the success of an organization’s Web presence that making a hasty decision is unwise and potentially costly.
So, my advice is to choose wisely. Go into your CMS review with clear Web goals. Know what kind of IT infrastructure and support you have and know what kind of support you expect from the vendor if you pick a vendor-based solution. Understand the features that are important to your hospital and look at best in class sites to get a better understanding of what you could do with your site. Create a requirements document with key elements to ensure that you make a choice that fits your organization well.
If you are looking for a vendor-based CMS solution, a good selection process includes creating a thorough RFP, sending it out to the appropriate relevant vendors, narrowing the vendor list based on the responses, and picking the best vendors to come in and demo their product. Don’t pick a vendor solely based on cost, an exciting demo or how nice it is to talk to the sales people. It is imperative to have a good multi-disciplinary group involved in the decision-making process that includes the Web team, elements of marketing, IT and other key decision team members which may include HR, recruiting, the business office, the hospital foundation, internal communications, the executive team, and clinical care. Give the selected vendor finalist’s ample time to demonstrate their solutions so your team can see how it works. Also, look at the front end and the back end of the solution and review the features your team thinks are most important. In addition, make sure to check on the references — both good and bad — to get an understanding of what it’s like to work with that particular vendor.
In the past several years, Greystone has had the good fortune to work with dozens of organizations on a CMS selection process. From my experience, picking the right solution is rarely obvious without turning over a few rocks and meticulously reviewing the solution options. There is never any guarantee that everything will go perfectly, but a thoughtful and deliberate approach to selecting the right solution will minimize the chances of making a big CMS selection mistake.
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