The Metro South Health (MSH) Web Team recently proved the adage ‘when the coding gets tough the tough get coding’ with the successful launch of the new MSH public-facing website on July 24, 2024.
After 18 months of consultation, re-branding, re-building, and hard decisions on what makes the cut, the team, in partnership with the Digital Health Transformation crew, proudly unveiled the sleek, new public website.
Andrew, Digital Manager, says this project was possible thanks to the adaptability and drive of the team balancing a host of competing priorities.
"We receive an average of 30 publishing requests a day, so just keeping information current and maintaining the technical aspects across our various web platforms keeps us very busy. Any time we have left is spent on projects to improve the usability and functionality of our platforms," said Andrew.
But it’s not just about crafting a seamless user experience; it's also about ensuring the websites are secure and reliable.
"There’s a lot of consideration for what doesn’t go online. Everything we publish needs to align with MSH strategic goals and meet a relevant user need. This keeps it clean and easy to use but it’s also how we manage risk. It’s not the most glamorous part of our jobs and requires balancing conflicting needs, but it has the most impact in the long-term."
The team faced a full-scale rebuild with the new external website, involving a thorough overhaul of content and a focus on plain language readability. Condensing the website's content down from about 1,200 pages to approximately 160, an 85 per cent reduction in content.
"It was a learning experience because we haven’t had such a focus on user needs and readability before," said Andrew.
"We had a lot of help to get this far, but I’m excited by how much we are improving our public-facing website for MSH’s diverse audiences."
The addition of new web developers has also significantly boosted the team's technical ability to take on projects in-house.
“We can tackle complex projects, like the PAH intranet site migration to QHEPS (Squiz platform), in-house, saving significant costs. Being able to handle the full process ourselves was a big win.”
Some projects take patience like the consolidation of thousands of policies, forms, and patient information brochures. It’s taken over a decade of migrations, but the MSH Web is excited to be releasing a single searchable catalogue for all MSH’s corporate documents.
"In the past, documents have been scattered across the intranet based on which facility they relate to and the type. Having all document types easily searchable from one place is going to save so much time."
“It’s also a step towards redesigning our digital space with consistency. Bringing us together as one Metro South Health and designing a roadmap for our platforms into the future,” said Andrew.
"Improving the way an intranet search works might save 20 seconds per individual, but that time multiplied across the organisation means countless hours of staff time recovered. That’s what drives us, simplifying things for staff so they can get on with making a difference in the lives of our consumers.”
“Everyone in the team is keen to contribute ideas and enjoys the work they do, even when the coding gets tough.”