1: The Challenge - The Bozeman Deaconess Hospital website was initially built in the vein of an online brochure describing the hospital and its services. In 2002, with a new marketing team in place at the hospital, the Marketing Communications department launched upon a strategically planned corporate brand restructuring campaign. This campaign was designed to demonstrate through symbolic and visual representations that Bozeman Deaconess Hospital is a solid, stable, professional, competitive, technically advanced, dynamic and vital corporation. The effort aimed to increase awareness of the hospital's role in the community, inform residents of the quantity and kind of services available at the hospital, educate the public about the quality of those services, and persuade prospective patients that there is no advantage in leaving town for treatment that can be obtained locally. The hospital had spent considerable energy revising its corporate identity; therefore, it seemed natural that the out-of-date website would be one of the first forms of communication to be revised.
In addition to a new look, Bozeman Deaconess wanted to implement major changes in the site. The hospital wanted to provide in-depth health and education information, service line information, a physician database, online job information and application, community outreach calendar and patient information. The website would serve a large and varied audience including prospective employees and residents, patients, physicians, the community and employees.
2: The Solution - J-Tech Communications worked closely with Bozeman Deaconess Hospital to plan the reconstructed site. Together we researched, explored and documented all desired and relevant features to be included in new site. Once the important and incontestable aspects of the website were determined, we set out to accomplish those goals.
Because of the size and the depth of the site, special attention was paid to the navigation system. A three-tier structure was selected that included a DHTML-driven top navigation system, a "rabbit trail" showing the user their navigation path and a left-based "intermediate" navigation system that allows the user to maneuver within the currently chosen primary section. All specifics pertinent to the pages, such as database tables, fields and relations were mapped.
Because of the depth of the project, the website was launched in three logical phases. This would allow us to meet the hospital's initial scheduling need and would increase usability with two incremental upgrades. Phase I, or the initial version of the site, went live in 2003; Phase II was launched in 2004; and Phase III launched in 2006.
3: The Results - Today Bozeman Deaconess has a modern, dynamic site representing its corporate identity and branding strategy while serving the health care needs of the region it services by providing health and education information along with physician and service line resources for the community. Beyond the initially planned three phases, further improvements have been added to the site such as baby announcements, integration of a third-party payment system, and integration of a medical news live-feed provided by a third party vendor.
See it for yourself!
www.bozemandeaconess.org 
