Making Sense of HealthcareAdvocate Physician Partners (APP)
A new intranet brings thousands of physicians from across the country together under a unified collaboration portal. With better access to information, research, and training tools, Advocate Physician Partners is helping physicians improve healthcare and reduce costs.
“Our key users are physicians and their office staff who are juggling the demands of caring for their patients while adapting to the constant change that characterizes the healthcare industry. Providing them with a tool that supports their efforts to provide outstanding care was the overriding goal of this project. Every aspect of the new site fully supports that goal.”
Mark Shields, Senior Medical Director for Advocate Physician Partners
The Challenge
Advocate Physician Partners (APP) had an intranet that was no longer able to meet the needs of its users—busy physicians and office staff. The site’s architecture did not support the growing content needs of the organization, and navigation and design contributed to an unsatisfactory user experience. APP members across the country needed a robust and reliable forum for collaboration on new initiatives and discoveries.
The Solution
NavigationArts helped envision a new intranet to enhance the APP brand, increase usage, and enable better control over website content and communications. Working closely with the APP team, NavigationArts revised site architecture, created a new online look and feel, and built the intranet using the Sitecore Content Management System.
Each year, the number of physician members in APP grows, requiring a flexible tool that meets the unique needs of each audience segment. Providing important announcements, information, and tools, as well as highlighting the success of its members are all important components to APP’s acquisition and retention strategy. Through a user-centered approach, the NavigationArts team prioritized the site’s structure and layout with the goal of facilitating a stronger relationship between APP and its physician partners.
Project Results Included:
- A high-quality look and feel that supports APP’s position as a forward-thinking professional organization
- A content management solution with a more flexible, extensible, and easy-to-maintain site infrastructure
- Personalization and search features to improve overall user experience
The Client
APP is the care management and managed care contracting joint venture between Advocate Health Care and more than 3,800 physicians on the medical staffs of Advocate hospitals. The Advocate Physician Partners Clinical Integration Program joins together what would otherwise be a fragmented group of employee and independently practicing physicians into a single comprehensive care management program that allows physicians to collaborate to improve healthcare outcomes and reduce medical costs.