5 Essentials For Healthcare Site Search

The websites of healthcare organizations today play a significant role in disseminating information and resources to the public, medical professionals and most importantly to patients. Because websites now serve as an important resource solution for healthcare consumers, it’s critically important that the on-site search platform being used is powerful enough to provide website visitors with meaningful site search experiences. Here are 5 essential elements that are important for your search tool to have in order to deliver great experiences to healthcare consumers.  

Personalized & Relevant Search Results  

Nearly all website visitors today have grown accustomed to receiving search results that have meaning and relevance to them. This is especially true as it relates to search inquires made on healthcare sites. Healthcare is one of the most personal industries with which consumers engage and it’s important that site visitors feel as though your website is in tune with their needs and concerns. On-site search platforms such as HawkSearch focus on delivering extremely personalized and relevant search results to visitors. There are several ways in which HawkSearch accomplishes this goal, such as visitor targeting and machine learning. Visitor Targeting utilizes known information about visitors and utilizes that information to refine the search results that are returned. Machine learning allows HawkSearch to analyze an enormous amount of visitor search data and then make predictions about visitors’ search patterns and trends. These two technologies make it possible for HawkSearch to deliver highly personalized and relevant search results.

Federated Search  

Websites specifically designed for healthcare organizations contain a vast amount of critical information for site visitors. These sites are able to offer users a robust level of functionality such as looking up providers, making bill payments, setting appointments, getting information on events and patient education, accessing patient resources, viewing test results and interacting with their caregivers/medical records. In order for healthcare industry websites to provide such a vast amountof resources to consumers, the sites must be able to pull their information from many data sources and platforms, across numerous systems. Because site visitors are looking for a comprehensive on-site search experience, HawkSearch utilizes a federated search strategy. Federated search allows site users to benefit by having access to all of the data and resources available on your website, not just bits and pieces of it that some search engines are only able to see. Regardless of whether your visitors are seeking information that is housed on platforms for classes/events, news, educational resources, ecommerce, provider look up or medical information, HawkSearch empowers site users to search in the aggregate, by having access to all information on a given topic that your site has to offer them.  

Smart Autocomplete  

The HawkSearch Smart Autocomplete feature is standard and allows the on-site search tool to help web visitors find what they are looking for by essentially finishing or completing their search phrasing for them as it is being entered into the search box. The Smart Autocomplete technology recognizes both words and phrase trends and will automatically take over the search box typing to complete a search description. This feature has proven to be a great help in the effort to pin point what searchers’ intentions are when they make an inquiry. Smart Autocomplete is powered by the machine learning technology which studies search trends and behaviors. Since many people search for common information or resources, HawkSearch is able to predict what visitors are searching for, which greatly helps provide personalized and relevant search results. In addition, the Smart Autocomplete feature helps guide visitors to the proper area of the website in which the content they want to see is housed.  

Synonyms  

Medical information websites often contain technical terms or other verbiage that is not completely familiar to many site visitors. As of a result of this unavoidable situation, many consumers may not use the appropriate medical search term or phrasing when looking for a resource or information. The HawkSearch synonym functionality through the Relevancy Tuning feature allows site administrators to load commonly used alternative words that will be recognized and linked to the proper medical terminology found in the site’s content. This standard feature found in HawkSearch helps provide satisfactory site search experiences, even when visitors don’t use proper medical terminology.  

Did You Mean? / Spell Check  

Certain medical terminology is difficult to spell for most lay people who are not trained professionals. With most search tools, when a site visitor misspells a phrase in the search box, it sets up a potential search failure because the on-site search tool cannot recognize or understand what the visitor is trying to accomplish. HawkSearch completely avoids this problem with the Did You Mean / Spell Check feature. When a visitor types in a misspelled word, HawkSearch will respond with a Did You Mean question and then list a variety of alternative options for the visitor to choose. Or the search tool can also be configured to actually correct the spelling of the words with which the person is trying to search. In either case, HawkSearch prevents a search result derailment from happening by keeping the searcher on the right track, despite the inputting of misspelled words. Medical websites play an enormously important role today by giving providers, staff members and patients access to all that a healthcare organization has to offer. Because there are so many resources on these sites, administrators must be able to present this vast amount of information in an organized and easy to use fashion. HawkSearch accomplishes this by always providing personalized and relevant search results and at the same time giving administrators unique tools that continuously improve and refine the site search experience for site visitors.