Connecting Research, Care, and Community: Digital Strategy for a Global Health Institution
Organizing a website around what patients, researchers, clinicians, and supporters needed to find.
The information was there. The paths weren’t.
The institution’s digital channels had developed separately as programs grew. Messaging varied by department, and the website didn’t show clearly how clinical care, research, education, and philanthropy related to one another.
People looking for care information, research partnerships, or educational resources struggled to find content that was already on the site.
Patients, researchers, donors, and partners weren’t looking for the same information. Each program also had its own priorities and way of communicating.
The website needed to serve those differences without asking visitors to understand the institution’s internal structure first.
How I approached it
The key decisionI organized the website around audiences instead of departments. That one choice shaped the navigation, messaging, and page structure.
What I ruled outFlattening every program into one voice. Shared standards connected the programs while keeping each one’s distinct work visible.
- AudiencesDefine what patients, researchers, clinicians, and supporters need from the site.
- PathwaysBuild navigation and page structures around those needs.
- StandardsAlign messaging, content structure, and visual standards across programs.
- OwnershipAssign who keeps each area current and how conflicts get resolved.
Organizing pages around audience questions also made them easier for search engines and AI tools to understand. I added clear page titles and descriptions, consistent heading structure, and structured data for locations, providers, and events, so search results and AI answers pointed people to the right page.
What I did
I organized the strategy around what visitors came to find and do. That became the basis for navigation and content decisions across departments.
I created paths for patients, researchers, clinicians, and supporters. With the program teams, I also worked out who would maintain the content, how conflicting information would be resolved, and which content and accessibility standards everyone would follow.
I brought the content structure, messaging, and visual standards into alignment so visitors could understand the institution’s work and find the part relevant to them.
What changed
The updated website made care, research, and educational resources easier to find. It also showed the connections between programs.
Teams had shared standards and a process for keeping the content current after the project ended.