Future-Proof Your Healthcare Website: Scalable Strategies for Growth
Summary: A healthcare website should evolve—not become obsolete. But when digital experiences fall behind, patient access suffers. Too many organizations fall into the costly trap of 'launch, neglect, and rebuild,' disrupting user experiences and wasting resources.
Stephen Barry, Product Manager at Lee Health, and Ben Cash, CEO of Reason One, advocate for a smarter approach: incremental improvements. By focusing on adaptable tech, scalable systems, and data-driven design, organizations can break the cycle and build websites that evolve with their needs.
“Websites are like living, breathing things—they need constant care and attention,” Barry explains.
Breaking the Rollercoaster Cycle
Many healthcare systems spend years neglecting their website, then burn it down to rebuild. This “set it and forget it” mentality costs time and money.
“So many health systems build the website, set it and forget it, and they don’t really evolve it,” Cash says. “And then inevitably, they burn it down every few years. This rollercoaster cycle can be really expensive, really painful.”
A Smarter Approach: Continuous Improvement
Instead of costly overhauls, Lee Health embraced small, steady changes over time.
Challenges in Future-Proofing
Healthcare organizations face four key challenges:
1. Keeping Up with Technology
New tools like self-scheduling and telehealth are essential but hard to integrate without disrupting workflows. Barry notes, “There’s been a big fundamental shift from monolithic applications over to a more composable microservices approach. And I think what that does is allow you to replace that piece versus having to replace the whole thing over and over again as things change.”
2. Fragmentation to Optimization
In 2022, we launched a major marketing initiative for children’s services, spotlighting Golisano Children's Hospital. However, our digital presence didn’t reflect the hospital’s reputation. Two competing web pages created confusion: a location detail page that lacked engaging content and service details, and a landing page missing key information for quick reference. Users primarily found the page that ranked higher in Google, while the other remained undiscovered. Internal navigation wasn’t effectively connecting the two, resulting in a fragmented user experience.
Compounding the issue, the Patient and Family Advisory Council (PFAC) and Golisano leadership voiced concerns about the website’s shortcomings. They pushed for a new standalone website, a solution that made sense but wasn’t budgeted and would have required significant resources to build and maintain. Instead, we developed a cost-effective alternative: a "faux microsite." This redesigned, consolidated page created a more engaging digital front door, improved navigation with a dedicated sub-menu, and enhanced SEO by eliminating internal competition and improving Google rankings.
The impact was immediate. The project was completed in just three months—far less than the estimated 12 to 18 months needed for a full site build. Traffic increased by 10%, helping more families find the right resources. The approach also delivered significant cost savings while meeting the needs of stakeholders. Most importantly, PFAC and leadership were pleased with the outcome, reinforcing trust in our digital strategy.
Part 3: Meeting Rising User Expectations
This project set the stage for our next digital innovation: Urgent Care Self-Scheduling, which was particularly valuable for seasonal residents, or "snowbirds." These seasonal residents turn to urgent care in Florida while keeping their primary care providers back home. By integrating wait times and self-scheduling, we made care more accessible while reducing unnecessary exposure in waiting rooms.
In contrast, year-round residents who are more likely to have ongoing care through Lee Health continued to schedule primarily through MyChart. This seasonal shift in behavior validated our digital strategy and reinforced the importance of offering multiple access points for different patient populations.
4. Avoiding Disruption While Adding Features
Healthcare organizations often struggle to introduce new digital tools without disrupting internal workflows. Adding online scheduling, automating provider data, or improving search functionality requires close coordination between teams to ensure that improvements enhance both the patient experience and internal efficiency.
Barry plays a critical role in aligning IT and marketing, making sure digital updates improve workflows without causing friction.
"I probably work with our IT department just as much as I do with marketing. Even though I’m on the marketing team, close collaboration between IS and marketing is necessary for success."
One of the biggest pain points for Lee Health was keeping provider profiles up to date—a task that was entirely manual and took up to 30 hours per week. Recognizing the inefficiency, Barry led an initiative to automate provider data management, significantly reducing the workload for staff.
"Thankfully, I got the system on board to, you know, do a formal project within our IT department to create a source of truth for our providers and locations. And that project is, you know, in development right now. And I can't wait for it to go live."
With automation in place, new provider profiles and updates no longer require extensive manual work, allowing staff to focus on more strategic priorities. By ensuring collaboration between IT, marketing, and operations, Lee Health successfully adds new features without disrupting daily workflows or creating inefficiencies.
The Power of Incremental Change
Many healthcare organizations fall into the costly cycle of redesigning their websites to solve problems. Instead, Lee Health took a different approach, prioritizing small, strategic updates over a full rebuild.
The results speak for themselves:
Urgent care bookings surged with online self-scheduling tools, driving a 107% increase in appointments and $2.5 million in new revenue in just one month.
Provider data automation saved 40 staff hours weekly by eliminating 12 manual tasks.
Pediatric services optimization boosted traffic by 10% and saved $300,000 by avoiding an unnecessary rebuild.
“Scaling isn’t just about adding features—it’s about making internal processes more efficient,” explains Stephen Barry.
Building a Strong Foundation
Barry emphasizes that without a strong foundation, digital improvements won’t be sustainable. Future-proofing starts with two essential elements:
1. Design Systems standardize typography, colors, and layouts, ensuring consistency and scalability across your digital ecosystem.
“A design system scales your brand and prevents inefficiencies, especially when it comes to typography, spacing, and components,” Barry notes.
2. Content Models and Taxonomy provide structure, making it easier for users to find providers, services, and information.
This framework enhances search functionality and improves user experience.
“If the foundation isn’t right—the taxonomy, the content models, the site structure—you’re going to build up technical debt and inefficiencies down the road,” Barry warns.
By focusing on these foundational elements, Lee Health streamlined its website operations, avoided costly rebuilds, and delivered better experiences for users.
Composable Architecture: The Future of Websites
To prepare for the future, Lee Health adopted composable architecture, a modular approach to website management. This strategy allows organizations to replace outdated tools without rebuilding their entire website.
“There's been a big fundamental shift from monolithic applications over to a more composable microservices approach,” Barry explains. “What that does is allow you to replace that piece versus having to replace the whole thing over and over again as things change.”
This flexibility ensures websites are adaptable, scalable, and capable of integrating new technologies as they emerge.
Continuous Improvement in Action
Lee Health’s success stems from a straightforward and repeatable process:
Audit site data to understand user behavior.
Strategize priorities based on actionable insights.
Execute updates incrementally while measuring results.
“If we try to tackle too many big things at once, nothing gets done,” Barry says. “Even the smaller projects matter. Incremental changes let us focus on the details and make sure we get them right.”
Analytics play a significant role in Lee Health’s process. By analyzing heat maps and user data, the team identified where users spent the most time on the site and refined high-priority areas, such as the "Find a Doctor" tool. This data-driven approach ensures updates align with user needs and organizational goals.
Watch the Webinar
Healthcare leaders and digital teams struggling with outdated websites and costly rebuilds can learn how Lee Health built a scalable, patient-centered digital strategy in this webinar featuring Stephen Barry and Ben Cash.
Topics include:
Incremental improvements that drive measurable results.
How Lee Health transformed urgent care bookings.
Tools and technologies to scale your website.
Take the Next Step
Break free from the costly cycle of neglect and rebuilds. At Reason One, we help healthcare organizations design scalable websites that grow with user needs. Schedule a consultation to future-proof your digital presence, and subscribe to our newsletter for expert tips on website optimization, digital strategy, and healthcare best practices.