00:00 Radek: A good website for a medical facility is one that isn't designed by guesswork. It's the result of analyzing conversations with stakeholders and patients, and further analysis.

00:10 Ilona: It's tailored to the services offered by that facility and highlights...

00:16 Radek: ...the problems and needs these patients currently have, and we initially think about how we want to address them in our solution. A patient's journey through treatment is often fraught with emotion.

00:27 Ilona:The thing about this longer path is that many more factors come into play that influence it.

00:33 Radek:From the team's perspective, what functionalities should we provide, and then we move on to the look and feel workshop, where we take

00:50 Radek: Welcome to another episode of the Design and Business podcast. This is Radek Rejsel and

00:53 Ilona: Ilona Skarbowska.

00:54 Radel: Today, we'll talk about how to design the ideal website for a medical facility. A website is more than just a business card. It's a patient touchpoint, a service sales channel, and a space that builds trust in your brand. But how do you make it truly sell not just treatments? Not just specialized services, but also the experience that the facility will offer to the patient. Today, we'll discuss how to design such an ideal medical facility website that addresses the real needs of patients and also meets business goals. 

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01:39 Ilona: So if you're planning to redesign your clinic's website, network 

clinic or salon, beauty, aesthetic medicine. This podcast is for you. When we start a project for a medical clinic or MedTech company, the most important thing is to understand the four fundamental goals that this website, the new website, needs to achieve.

02:05 Radek:Yes, the first is a strategic goal, the second is a business goal, the third is a functional goal, and the fourth is an image goal. Let's start with the first one, the strategic goal, because it's crucial to understand the historical background of a given facility or brand. Where it came from and where it's headed – the absolute basics. We need to understand this because the most important aspect of a strategic goal is to help that facility, that brand, achieve it through its website. The website is precisely where this strategy can be implemented and should be reflected. I'm talking here about goals like, for example, expansion into other markets or introducing a service in specialized niches. Medical facilities are often complex structures. It's important to remember that often it's not just one clinic, but a network of clinics, a network of clinics in different regions, or, for instance, a network of clinics and hospitals. This growth is tied to... a strategic goal that we must consider.

03:23 Radek: And an important strategic point, perhaps the most important one, that needs to be understood before designing the website, is that a given brand might be looking for specific partnerships. Because there might be strategic goals related, for example, to some research, to the development of specific knowledge in a particular specialized field, and this is where a partnership would come into play.

03:52 Ilona: With universities, or with clinics, with centers that conduct medical research.

03:58 Radek: Or, it will be more about a goal related to developing new technologies to offer new medical services. For example, collaboration or the potential for collaboration with businesses, and signaling that interest to them, will be important, and it will be important to showcase this on the website.

04:21 Ilona: Or, showcasing the quality of equipment available at a particular facility. A facility might distinguish itself through its collaboration with a university or a research department, but it could also, for instance, strategically update its equipment very frequently and wants to highlight that on its website.

04:37 Radek: Or simply have some very unique equipment. Another set of goals that need to be considered are business goals, because the website simply has to sell. What specific KPIs do we need to consider, or what should the website achieve for us, to be able to say the project was successful? To figure this out, we need to delve a little into history, dig into and understand the historical data (if available) that will serve as our baseline, and identify what types of conversions should occur on the site, because different establishments will have different conversion goals.

05:24 Ilona: Yes, but it also depends on which services are important. If a facility offers many services, has numerous units within one location, or even operates multiple facilities, as we've seen with our clients. For instance, we've had the opportunity to collaborate with a network of private clinics and hospitals, but we also completed a project for a single, highly specialized clinic.

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05:54 Radek: Are you talking about fertility tracking?

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5:55 Ilona: No, I'm referring now to the Euromedicare network of private clinics from the Lower Silesian region, and the single facility I'm mentioning is Medispace, which deals strictly with gastrointestinal issues. Here, the offering will be different because we have a narrower specialization, and consequently, the sales and business objectives will be somewhat different, as will the data. The emphasis on the website will be placed in different areas.

06:30 Radek: Yes, we'll certainly expand on this, because the goals – those we define ourselves and those we truly understand from the client's perspective – will then serve as a guide for how we structure the content and offerings on the website. I'll come back to this. Next are the functional goals, very closely tied to the user and the functionality we want to offer on the site. This is a key focus for us: specifically, how we want to communicate with the patient, how we want to facilitate that contact for them, and whether we already have a concrete vision for how we want to do this. 

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07:10 Ilona: Right, do we also want to take care of the patient, for example, between appointments, or if...

07:15 Radek:Is appointment booking even an option?

07:19 Ilona: Yes, whether this entry point, meaning appointment booking, will happen via the website, through phone contact, or directly on the site. But for those procedural patients – I refer to them as 'one-off' patients, not necessarily meaning they are always single-visit, but sometimes they are in the context of a specific facility – it's also about ensuring such a patient finds guidelines on how to prepare for a given procedure. This is so that our business KPI, which could be, for example, reducing call center load, can be addressed by putting some of this information on the website and allowing the patient to find more data regarding the procedure, the specific doctor, or how to book an appointment on the site. So these could be forms, but they could also be, well, I don't want to say 'tutorials' because it's not a tutorial, but rather checklists or guidelines on how to prepare for a specific procedure.

08:19 Radek: Yes, but all of this will essentially define our functional goal, whether we want to, for example, guide the patient every step of the way, or empower them with independence. And here, of course, we can also define certain KPIs. Meaning, those we can later verify, for instance, in user tests, to see if, for example, the registration paths are completed flawlessly within a specific timeframe. And the next set of goals are image-related, concerning how the website presents itself, how it visually represents our brand, meaning, its graphic design and the impression it makes on users.

08:58 Ilona: Patient.

08:59 Radek: The patient, exactly. Because let's consider, if we're talking about specialized treatment for a particular illness, like oncology, for instance, patients will be looking for something that provides, something very concrete, that inspires a strong sense of trust, whereas it will be different for a beauty clinic, where comfort and lifestyle will certainly take precedence and be expected, because that clinic offers entirely different services.

09:30 Ilona: 09:30 Ilona: And my sense, looking across all the medical projects we've worked on, is that this element of trust appears regardless of the specific area we're designing for. A patient might be looking at post-procedure aesthetics, but these are still medical procedures. On the other hand, we have a patient with gastroenterological issues, who might visit a site like Medispace, which we also designed. But I have a feeling that this 'umbrella of trust' will be everywhere. The question then becomes, what's that second emotion, that brand image goal, beyond trust? Trust and what else? Trust and lifestyle, trust and care, trust and safety. Medical brands, those offering medical services or products, really need to decide here. They can't leave this decision to chance, and they can't just say they only want trust. In my opinion, this brand image goal needs to be deepened, because not every brand can just have a blue logo. That's a big oversimplification, that blue is associated with trust. I want to say this to you, the listener, that it's not just... We can't stop at just this one characteristic for this segment, because everyone has it. So there needs to be one unique element that reinforces that sense of safety and trust for the patient.

And my sense, looking across all the medical projects we've worked on, is that this element of trust appears regardless of the specific area we're designing for. A patient might be looking at post-procedure aesthetics, but these are still medical procedures. On the other hand, we have a patient with gastroenterological issues, who might visit a site like Medispace, which we also designed. But I have a feeling that this 'umbrella of trust' will be everywhere. The question then becomes, what's that second emotion, that brand image goal, beyond trust? Trust and what else? Trust and lifestyle, trust and care, trust and safety. Medical brands, those offering medical services or products, really need to decide here. They can't leave this decision to chance, and they can't just say they only want trust. In my opinion, this brand image goal needs to be deepened, because not every brand can just have a blue logo. That's a big oversimplification, that blue is associated with trust. I want to say this to you, the listener, that it's not just... We can't stop at just this one characteristic for this segment, because everyone has it. So there needs to be one unique element that reinforces that sense of safety and trust for the patient.

11:15 Radek: To achieve these goals – and this is precisely my next point – we first need to conduct a live, working analysis with the client during workshops. Workshops are meetings where we truly engage with the client, because they often have certain assumptions in mind and a lot of material, often scattered, and we simply need to organize it. 

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11:45 Ilona: If we're talking about a strategic workshop – that initial workshop that gathers information on four key areas – how would you describe a sample agenda for it? What actually happens during it?

12:03 Radek: I would divide this into two things: a strategic workshop and a look-and-feel workshop. First, the strategic workshop is about thoroughly understanding where the company wants to be. It involves discussing the slides the company usually prepares with another partner, and from that, extracting what's most important for us. The second thing is defining business goals – specifically, what we want to achieve, for example, within a year of launching a given website. Next, and most importantly, we discuss personas – customers, or in this case, patients. What problems do these patients currently have? What are their needs? And we start thinking about how we want to address these in our solution. From the team's perspective, what functionalities should we provide? Then we move on to the look-and-feel workshop, where we define the brand's characteristics, selecting adjectives that describe the desired style. A valuable exercise is to go through benchmarks and, with the team, identify which elements from various websites – not just industry-specific ones, but also others offering analogous services – are appealing. And here, we're not talking about "I like this whole website," but rather "I like a specific part of this website."

13:16 Ilona: I like the photo cropping.

13:18 Radek:For example, or color. We then create a brief that guides the subsequent design process. One important thing I haven't mentioned yet, but I'll get back to it, is that we also analyze the client's analytical data. This means we gather all available performance data. Sales data, and data from their website, if they have one – sometimes clinics come to us without a website, as new brands, or a specific part of their website is missing, making comparison difficult. We simply need this data to understand the starting point.

13:59 Ilona: In this specific medical segment, there's also one thing – I wouldn't say it's extremely characteristic, but it's a recurring theme across all projects: patient pathways. Here, we deal with both short and long patient pathways.

14:18 Radek: Yes, yes, I'd put it like that. Of course, this is a huge simplification, but I think in this case it matters because the website will serve different purposes depending on these paths. And now we need to understand what these paths are, distinguish them, determine if they're long or short, so we know where to position the website within these paths. Because in the case of a short path, we're characterizing medical services and products that are used once and...

14:53 Ilona: Used rarely, just once, right?

14:54 Radek: Rarely, but things like periodic check-ups, blood tests, ultrasounds, colonoscopies – these are the kinds of things that...

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15:00 Ilona: An eye exam, for example, which you have done from time to time.

15:03 Radek:Yes, or some simple procedures that we perform and just

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15:05 Ilona: You come, get your treatment, leave.

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15:07 Radek: Exactly. We can complete the entire purchasing journey, or most of it, directly on the website.

15:14 Radek:Throughout the long treatment journey, we won't be able to manage the entire purchasing process, or even most of it, through the website. We will only be able to guide the patient by the hand, give them 

a comprehensive knowledge base, a catalog of information about a specific service, which will be extensive, much like fertility treatment. This is a very long process, comprising many smaller procedures, components, and tests. Or a hospital service, for instance. It acts as a starting point for something much larger. And here, we must ensure that patients are informed and reassured – addressing both male and female patients with inclusive language. 

16:00 Radek: But with these paths, these short paths, we quickly realize how easily and quickly we can take a patient through the process. 

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16:10 Ilona: This longer patient journey involves many more factors that influence when to book an appointment, which facility to choose, what tests to undergo, and what the current consultation entails. We had the opportunity to design a patient portal for nOvum, a Fertility Treatment Clinic, and the patient journey there was completely different. It was a long journey, because it's not simply a matter of coming in at 7 AM for a blood test, leaving, and being done. Instead, I might need to see a doctor, scheduling an appointment on a specific day of my cycle. So, to summarize both the long and short user/patient journeys, depending on what the clinic offers and how the treatment actually proceeds, the website and its design must be adapted to the length of that journey.

17:09 Radek: So, how do we create these patient journeys? First, we've already developed these personas, which are profiles of our patients, and then we simply map out their treatment journey. We identify where pain points occur and strive to resolve them as effectively as possible. Naturally, we leverage our website for this, designing solutions to genuinely facilitate the patient's treatment.

17:36 Ilona: Yes, and I'd like to add something here. It's great you mentioned "pain points," but I'm not referring to health-related inflammation or inflammatory conditions. What I mean is that a large portion of medical products and services—practically most, I'd say 90%—take place in a clinic, in a physical location. So, the website is part of that journey, but it appears at various points, and it's not a place where we come, complete the entire service online, leave, and that's it. It shows up at specific points, and I think that's what you meant by "pain points," because at these points, a patient might have questions or doubts. And the website should be designed to address these doubts, so they don't even arise in the first place. Conversations with stakeholders, with various people who manage different elements within clinics, are very helpful here. And this is something we do either during the workshop phase or after workshops: in addition to gathering key elements related to brand image and business goals, we also verify what problems patients report to the people who directly interact with them, because we don't always have direct access to speak with patients ourselves.

19:09 Radek: Right, because Ilona, you highlighted those pain points. In our workshops, we're at a stage where we're building certain hypotheses and assumptions. And now, to build a data-driven product, which is our goal, we need to go to the customers – patients in this case – and verify with them whether these pain points we're discussing here, and which seem true to us, are actually true. And if they're not, then... what *is* true. And what's the underlying cause, right? Because let's remember that the patient journey in the case of treatment is deeply emotional. And we must take them into account. On the one hand, we can talk to stakeholders who are a source of knowledge about these patient pain points and needs. Of course, it's best to talk to the patients themselves. That's not always possible. It's quite a difficult process. Especially if, as we did recently, we held a workshop with a clinic, there were six personas, and for a project, it would be really difficult to launch such a large research process. Sometimes you just have to make an assumption, find out what we can based on what we have, and then implement something and test it. The key to any facility's website is to somehow lead to... it sounds cruel, now that I think about it, to sell.

20:33 Ilona: But why does that sound cruel to you? Tell me what you mean when you say 'sell'?

20:38 Radek: I was just talking about this recently with Ewelina Barylska in the previous episode. And we were discussing how, to some extent, in medical facilities, people still don't really speak the language of business. That it's so 

She's treading very carefully here, you know. And I really liked how Ewelina talked about leads. And that was like, wow... I think it's probably the first time I've heard anyone in a medical context refer to a patient as a lead. And that was very, very interesting. So let's not be afraid to speak up. 

21:09 Ilona: Okay, let me give you my perspective, because, actually, we need to separate two things here. We have services that patients pay for themselves, out of their own pocket, and we have services offered under collective insurance from the National Health Fund. But at the end of the day, someone pays for all these services. The question is whether you, as a patient, come in and pay out of your own pocket, or if you're sending in your contributions. So, it's a business. Without money, no clinic, no hospital can survive. So ultimately, these are leads, this is sales. And we can say it sounds cruel, but... that's how it is.

21:48 Radek: No, no, no, absolutely. You know what, let me tell you one more thing, it's an interesting point before we delve into this sales topic. You mentioned the NFZ, and many private clinics that approach us. One of their goals is to show that they offer some services under the NFZ.

22:06 Ilona:Yes, it's happened with several projects that this information was, well, not that it wasn't visible, because when we audit a website, when a client comes to us and we prepare for the first workshop, we always audit their current website or digital solutions. And that information is there, but it's presented in such a way that a patient might miss it, which again leads me to a general observation – not confirmed by quantitative research, only qualitative for now – that patients also read information very selectively, and there's a lot of stress when looking for a facility they want to visit. They often prefer to call and ask a person because they don't entirely trust what's written on the website. But how do you make the website layout such that the patient actually trusts it?

23:10 Radek: Well, that's the designers' job, exactly. That's generally the core of what we've been discussing. About sales, yes, we keep circling back to sales.

23:19 Ilona:Alright, let's get to it.

23:22 Radek:What's crucial is really how the offer is laid out on the website. To acquire that lead. To simply acquire a lead, meaning to acquire a patient. And this can't be done haphazardly, where we just throw whatever we want up there; it has to be linked to two specific things. The first 

One thing is strategic goals, which I've already touched upon here: what we want to sell, what we, as a brand, feel is necessary, what we feel we want to develop, what we feel will bring us leads. So that's one thing. The second thing is the actual needs and behaviors of patients: meaning, what's already selling well, what we're good at, what conditions patients have and what we can treat, and what falls within our — as you rightly said — our specialization. And this shouldn't be done haphazardly; especially concerning the second point, we need to remember that we must take specific data into account. We gather this data, on one hand, from analytics regarding conversions on our website. On the other hand, it's worth looking at offline sales data, if we conduct any such sales in physical locations.

24:41 Ilona:Yes, especially if the website's goal is to shift sales from offline to online channels. Then, to be able to set such a goal, we absolutely need to know the current situation and what situation we are striving for.

24:58 Radek: Yes, but often clients come to us and say that one of the really great KPIs is shifting away from some of that offline phone contact and sales, allowing patients to handle things themselves. Of course, not everything can be done that way, and that's very important.

25:18 Ilona: And here I have another thought related to discussions about IT, design, and digital solutions, specifically with clients from the medical industry (not patients, but the clients themselves). Because as a company specializing in user experience design, we are often the first point of contact for businesses when they want to implement online registration, for example. The ability to book appointments through these digital channels helps relieve the burden on phone lines. But it's not that simple at all. And from several conversations with clinics, we know that there's often a significant amount of technical debt. Often, when there are several, say, a hospital network or multiple clinics, it happens that each clinic operates on different software. They might have different licenses. And now, gathering all this information together is like playing Tetris, trying to fit everything into place. For this reason, I think it's not necessarily the main reason – I don't have definitive data – but ZnanyLekarz handles this issue. And of course, corporations, large medical companies like Medicover and Luxmed, have their own booking systems, but designing and implementing these reservation systems was certainly a huge pain, involving blood, sweat, and tears to get them to look the way they do now. Because it's not simple at all, and clinics come to us with similar challenges. Often, an MVP in such cases is some kind of intermediate reservation on their website, but this comes with many problems, and it's not at all easy for clinics to simply design and enable online patient booking.

27:25 Radek: What's also important to consider is certainly the data from the customer service team, or perhaps not sales data, but insights from people who talk to these clients and see, for example, what their needs are, what's missing from the website, what patients are looking for. With this analytics, it might also turn out that some services aren't converting. They aren't being chosen frequently. But perhaps that's because they simply don't have good visibility on the website.

27:56 Ilona: As we discussed regarding the services covered by the National Health Fund. If patients aren't aware they can book appointments this way, or, conversely, if they only book these types of services and not private ones, then perhaps that information is simply missing.

28:13 Radek: Exactly, so that definitely needs to be taken into account and discussed with the client. Only then can we truly decide what we offer, once we are confident about our strategy, confident that customers want it, and we promote it, and what goes  

Let's say it's a bit more aspirational, something you have to reach for. 

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28:39 Ilona:The last area we'll discuss today, which is a must-have when designing websites for clinics and medical facilities, is WCAG, but also SEO and, to some extent, artificial intelligence related to SEO. WCAG is a requirement. The point is that every website must be accessible, and in the case of medical services, it's even more crucial to ensure that every patient, even those with hearing or visual impairments, can use the site to book an appointment or find contact information. So, this year, websites providing such services – or rather, companies providing such services – if their website is not compliant with the requirements, they may face penalties. But the second part of this point also concerns SEO.

29:36 Radek:Why are we talking about these points together? Because both of these 

These aspects are quite significant from a design perspective, and critically important when it comes to handing over that design for development and for all documentation. When we work on design, we not only consider all elements related to WCAG and SEO, but we also factor in a project handover method that is truly tailored to facilitate the work during later implementation, also in line with these requirements. This means we provide clear instructions, appropriately prepared files, and detailed descriptions. Why do we highlight this? Because a website isn't just a pretty face or a nice business card; it's also, or at least should be, a very well-prepared document that functions flawlessly and is perfect for implementation.

30:36 Ilona:As we wrap up this podcast episode, we'd like to summarize the key elements and the crucial shift in how clinics, hospitals, and medical practices approach building their digital channels. Previously, some brands and clinics treated their website merely as a business card, but that's no longer sufficient today. A website is a sales channel, and that's precisely how clinics and medical facilities have begun to treat their websites. They focus on strategic, branding, sales, and functional objectives.

31:14 Radek: An effective website for a medical practice is one that also considers various patient treatment journeys, from quick, short visits to long-term, specialized care.

31:25 Ilona: It is tailored to the offerings of the specific facility and highlights the strategically important aspects.

31:34 Radek: A good website for a medical facility is one that isn't designed on a whim. It's the result of analyzing conversations with stakeholders and patients, as well as analyzing quantitative data.

31:46 Ilona: A modern website for clinics and medical facilities is designed so that both Google's search engines, our classic SEO, rank it well, as do modern search methods, for example, through artificial intelligence algorithms.

32:04 Radek: It is accessible, meaning it meets WCAG 2.0 requirements.

32:09 Ilona: If you manage a medical clinic, practice, or hospital and are considering redesigning your website, and you need 

If you need support or an analysis of your current situation, I encourage you to contact us. We'd be happy to conduct such an analysis and discuss your situation. 

32:34 Radek: We warmly invite you to other episodes of the Design and Business podcast. Thank you very much for being with us.

32:39 Ilona: Bye. Thanks, talk to you later, bye.