All medical practices and organizations should have a website. Patients and the general public can access information, visit a patient portal, or make appointments through a site. If you are building a healthcare website, then you may want to consider using Drupal as your content management system.
Drupal is an open-source content management system that is secure, scalable, and can easily be optimized for mobile. Many medical sites use it because of these features, as well as the ability to build a site using decoupled architecture, to offer language translation, and to optimize the website for SEO. While Drupal requires some coding knowledge, it is a popular choice among healthcare organizations because of its many great benefits - like security, support, and flexibility.
Based in Delaware, Inclind is a collaboration of some of the best website designers and developers in the country. We have specific experience working with healthcare organizations to build Drupal websites, including initial development, website redesigns, conversion optimization, and ongoing website support and maintenance. If you want to create or update a website for your medical practice, give us a call to learn more about how we can help.
Choosing a CMS for a Healthcare Website
Modern websites are built using a content management system, or CMS. There are several different CMS options, from platforms like WordPress and Drupal to proprietary software offered by companies like Adobe.
For healthcare providers, there are unique considerations when choosing a CMS - particularly when it comes to data security and accessibility. There are a few things that you should think about when it comes to picking a CMS for your medical site:
- Is the CMS Secure? Protecting patients’ private health information isn’t just a good business practice for healthcare entities - it is required under federal law. A medical content management system must be secure, offering options like legally compliant workflows, user permissions to limit access to certain content, and monitoring for threats and vulnerabilities.
- Is the CMS Accessible? Your medical website should be accessible to everyone, regardless of their language or disability. Some software systems make it easier to implement accessibility options than others, such as automatic language translation.
- Is the CMS User-Friendly? After a website is designed and developed, someone - usually an employee or group of employees - will need to use it to upload content and more. When picking a CMS, you should ensure that it has an easy-to-use administrative panel and content editor so that staff can use it without having to seek IT support.
- Is the CMS Optimized for SEO? Search engine rankings can influence the success of any entity, including a healthcare entity. A CMS should have built-in SEO features, such as fields for keywords, metadata, and title tags, as well as efficient coding.
- Does the CMS Offer Support? Even a relatively tech-savvy company may need assistance when it comes to implementing and running a website. When picking a CMS for your medical site, you should make sure that tech support is available.
One of the more popular CMS platforms available is Drupal. While this CMS requires some technical knowledge, it offers numerous benefits that are particularly important for healthcare websites.
Why Drupal Might Be the Right CMS for Your Medical Site
Drupal is an open-source CMS. This means its source code is available to everyone, and the base software is free. Because Drupal is open-source rather than proprietary, it is easy to implement new technologies seamlessly and address security challenges.
If you are debating which CMS is right for your medical website, read on to learn more about some of the benefits of choosing Drupal. If you have more questions or would like to get started on your healthcare site, reach out to Inclind to talk to our award-winning team of designers and developers.
Scalability
With its modular architecture, Drupal is built for speed. This CMS uses various tools to help ensure that its websites load quickly, such as modules for lazy loading, caching, image compression, and CSS optimization. These features ensure that your website achieves peak performance—no matter its size or the number of visitors to the site.
This is particularly important if you want to have multiple websites that are run through one CMS. With Drupal’s flexible API architecture, you can support and manage all multiple websites across a single ecosystem. For example, if you want your hospital website to include linked sites for regional locations, you can easily do so - and manage it all through Drupal’s administrative dashboard.
Security
Healthcare providers in the United States are subject to the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, or HIPAA, a law that requires covered entities to maintain the privacy and security of patient information. These laws can limit what software and applications a medical website can use—such as Google Analytics to track data—due to the potential for confidential information to be handled by non-covered entities.
Drupal is a good choice for healthcare websites because it is known for its high level of security. Its HIPAA-compliant encryption system makes it easy to protect patient data. Drupal also has a dedicated team of security experts to secure the platform against cyber attacks and other vulnerabilities. Because Drupal has high coding standards and a strict coding review process, it is considered the most secure open-source CMS on the market.
Content Workflow
It is important to keep the content fresh for any website so that it ranks high in search engine results (one form of search engine optimization, or SEO). The same is true for medical websites. Regularly updating content can improve your ranking in search engines like Google, but it often requires the input of multiple individuals and/or departments.
This is where Drupal shines. It has built-in tools that make authoring, approving, and publishing content easier. Its WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) editing makes it simple for creators to draft high-impact content. At the same time, tools for revision tracking, authoring by multiple people, and multi-stage approvals make it easy to handle content workflows. For this reason, Drupal is considered a top-notch CMS for healthcare websites.
Mobile Optimization
In the past, most people accessed websites through computers. Today, people are most likely to go online using their smartphone or tablet. Any medical website should be optimized for mobile devices to make sure that visitors can access the information.
Drupal’s CMS helps healthcare websites build responsive websites that are mobile-optimized. This includes mobile design best practices as well as tools so that websites can be reformatted to any device size. Drupal also includes an API infrastructure that makes it easy to port a website to a mobile app, should your medical practice decide that an application is necessary.
Decoupled Architecture
Decoupled architecture is a tech term for a software framework that allows various components to operate independently of each other. Drupal supports a decoupled architecture that uses Drupal core as the backend of the website, which gives websites a lot more flexibility when it comes to content. This allows a healthcare website to interact seamlessly with native applications and third-party medical health networks.
When using Drupal as a healthcare website CMS, the content is presented in chunks that can be delivered to websites and applications. The front-end developers can then create websites and applications based on their preferences, giving greater flexibility. There is a particular advantage of using decoupled architecture for a medical website that may need to share data securely within a system, including websites, kiosks, microsites, and applications.
Multilingual Capacity
It isn't unusual in the healthcare setting to treat patients who may not speak English as a first language. If you want to ensure that your content is available to all patients and community members, Drupal is an excellent choice. Its platform comes standard with automated language translation, making it easy to build a customized website.
Drupal’s language translation coding can detect the likely language of visitors to a website using their IP address, browser settings, and URL. It can then translate both the website's content and components of forms, the navigation menu, and more. In this way, your medical site will be accessible to all users, regardless of their primary or preferred language.
Reach Out to Inclind to Build Your Medical Website
Healthcare websites have specific needs that are often far different than any other business or nonprofit - particularly when it comes to the privacy and security of patient information. While there are many CMS options, we love Drupal for medical sites because it is secure, scalable, and flexible. Our team can help you design and build an initial site for your healthcare organization using Drupal - and then provide maintenance and support as your practice grows and changes.
Inclind works with all types of businesses and organizations throughout the United States to help them build secure, effective, and beautiful websites. We understand the unique concerns that medical practices have when it comes to having a website. We use our knowledge of technology and the laws governing healthcare websites to help our clients build the best possible website using CMS like Drupal and WordPress.
We are always here to talk if you want to learn more about our web design, development, and support services for healthcare organizations. You can call 800-604-8139 or fill out our online contact form to talk to one of our team members about your medical website.