Dig deeper: Uncovering the Power of Search Engines

Remember when the goal was to create a “sticky” website? The more time that customers spend on your website, the more likely they are to return and to see you as their “go to” source for key health information. Well the ante has just increased to stay in the game. Now you need to keep people connected to you, whether you provide the content or not.

You need to make your facility’s web site the first stop on the information superhighway. Most hospital web sites offer interactive elements, such an online bill pay, appointment and new patient forms, and registration for classes. By including a link to a credible search engine, you’re giving your web visitors one more reason to stay on your site and visit often. With a fast and accurate search engine, consider this:

• Consumers will look to your web site as they search for information during challenging and emotionally difficult times.
• Employees will save valuable time finding the information they need immediately through the hospital’s Intranet.
• Clinicians – will offer your web site as a resource for patients to get more information about diagnosis and treatment options.

How do you choose the search engine that will best position your facility? Let’s look at some key differentiation factors among currently available search tools:

• Web search vs. federated search – The public tends to use web “crawlers,” via Google, Yahoo, or Microsoft. These web search engines continually catalog websites, extracting published content and building indexes that are used to match webpages to a searcher’s word string. Researchers generally use a federated search tool, such as WebFeat, Serial Solutions, or Deep Web Technologies. These tools do not index web sites on an ongoing basis, but rather optimize the search results of reference websites that accumulate content published in e-journals and e-books.
• Ranking of pages searched – Search engines try to bring the user the most helpful response to their query, however, “relevance of results” depends on how they are set up. Some rank order the pages based on implicit popularity of the page or the highest click-through rate from previous searches. Some place paid advertisement results first. Some search engines filter the results based on the characteristics of the searcher (e.g., age, ethnicity, lay vs. professional, etc.), or allow the user to choose which sources should always be displayed first. Does page ranking mean you are getting the best, most current information available for your needs? Not necessarily. This is just something to consider as you may wonder why certain companies, information, etc. always appear first.
• Getting the results you need – Most search engines give you a list. You then need to scroll through each page to sort out the links you feel are most helpful (users rarely look at more than the first three pages of results). Some allow you to sort results (by date, author, source, and more) or include additional information on related terms within the same topic “cluster.” Sorting may assist you in filtering-down the information further to get the results you are seeking.
• Hosted or licensed searches – To avoid advertisements, you may want to consider paying for an ad-free version of your search engine. Running a search against available web content is less expensive and is dependent upon the search engine that is hosting the search. If you want to run the search against both external web content and internal repositories and databases, you will need to license an enterprise-wide search engine so that it can reside within your hospital’s firewall.

Are your search engine tools Web 2.0 ready? Happy Searching!

Janet Guptill, President, KM At Work, Inc. janet.guptill@kmatwork.com www.kmatwork.com

The Vericom Institute for Learning (VIL) is all about Building Indispensable Relationships. At Vericom, we continually seek to learn about your challenges in healthcare and how we can help you improve your communications and relationships with your patients and consumers, employees, and physicians.