5/30/2019

Website Taxonomy Can Predict What Your Patients Want to Read

Healthwise Communications Team

When patients and members visit your healthcare website, how do they interact with the content? Short of using a crystal ball, how can you achieve a personalized experience with adjacent information, relevant content, and navigation tips on your site?

The answer is taxonomy—with a healthy dose of ontology.

Taxonomy is a static hierarchical set of classifications, and ontology represents the relationships between concepts. When you do a Google search, the site uses both to deliver not just the content you say you’re looking for, but also the content Google thinks you’re probably looking for based on a set of related concepts.

Understanding how taxonomy and ontology work together can modernize your website to meet customer expectations. Josh Schlaich, Healthwise’s director of product marketing, sat down with Reed Smith and Chris Boyer of the Touch Point Media podcast to explore ways you can implement taxonomy and ontology across your organization’s site to increase patient conversion and become your patients’ most trusted source of health information.

Highlights from the podcast:

• Several health and wellness sites host a consolidated encyclopedia of health information, but that model no longer meets the needs of most of today’s consumers. Visitors want dynamic content.
• You can build a taxonomy around code sets, such as CPT and SNOMED, to direct patients to related content.
• The headless CMS is becoming more prevalent because it allows you to create a dynamic, seamless experience.
• Evaluating potential taxonomies for your website can also help you create focused search engine marketing (SEM) campaigns.
• Taxonomy lets you track visitors not just to the point of conversion, but also through their care and into post-discharge, engaging with them along the way.
• Patient interactions with your website are not linear; there are countless ways they can access your data. You can get very nuanced and address their needs in multiple ways along the customer journey.

Listen to the podcast in full at https://touchpoint.health/podcast/tp118-taxonomy-and-hashtags-the-semantics-of-digital/ (Josh’s interview begins at the 28:00 mark). Josh Schlaich can be reached on LinkedIn.