Drupal Consulting for NYU Langone Medical Center Cardiac Surgery

DPCI launches stand-alone Drupal-based Web content management system for NYU Langone Medical Center's Cardiac Surgery Group, encompassing comprehensive Search Engine Optimization strategy.

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DPCI launches stand-alone Drupal-based Web content management system for NYU Langone Medical Center's Cardiac Surgery Group, encompassing comprehensive Search Engine Optimization strategy.

The New York University Langone Medical Center's (NYULMC) Cardiac Surgery Group is home to some of the finest surgeons in the country. Having pioneered minimally invasive techniques for heart surgery in 1996, the practice has performed over 4,750 minimally invasive operations in addition to more conventional procedures. Chaired by Dr. Aubrey Galloway, the surgeons of the NYULMC Cardiac Surgery Group are leaders in their field, providing world-class patient care and cutting edge approaches to heart disease.

In order to meet its goal of increasing site traffic and creating more conversions and patients, the Cardiac Surgery Group needed its own Web site. It worked with DPCI, an interactive technology agency, to design the information architecture of the new Web site, implement the new site using the Drupal Web Content Management System, and put in place a site-wide Search Engine Optimization (SEO) strategy to drive traffic up and increase rankings on various search engines.

The Cardiac Surgery Group at the NYU Langone Medical Center was concerned that it was not gaining potential patients across the country due to the quality and organization of online content. The Cardiac Surgery administrative team hoped to increase the online visibility of their site by implementing a dedicated site just for their group, replacing their old platform which was located within the Web site of the larger Cardio-Vascular Institute (CVI).

Buried in the CVI site's navigation, the Cardiac Surgery site did not have its own home page and its content was mixed with other, non-surgery related content. The Cardiac Surgery administrative team felt that this was diluting their brand and causing them to lose patients to other hospital facilities with national reach. The unique value that NYULMC surgeons bring to their profession is that they have the best track record for minimally invasive surgery in the country, and they wanted a well organized site that would reflect this.

Some of NYULMC's national competitors had already engaged in SEO initiatives, optimizing their sites to ensure high page rankings and increased traffic. The Cardiac Surgery team wanted an SEO-ready platform to organize and tag site content, presenting a unified brand.

DPCI created a new, stand-alone Drupal site for the Cardiac Surgery Group based on the NYULMC IT group's Drupal platform in use for sites across the Medical Center. The site architecture was re-designed to allow visitors to find the most relevant information quickly, and much of the content was re-written to focus on the key words visitors are expected to look for.

In addition to the standard Drupal build, DPCI developers created a rotating slideshow for the front page of the site, allowing the Cardiac Surgery team to prominently display their best content. Composed of images with captions describing the surgical team to testimonials highlighting the experience of a particular patient, the slideshow is the visual center of the homepage, enticing visitors to dive into the site's content.

To increase site traffic and search engine page ranking, DPCI conducted an SEO analysis on the group's existing content. After determining the key terms for each page, titles, the new site was constructed to dynamically amplify these keyphrases on the popular search engines like Google.

DPCI also helped the Cardiac Surgery group better leverage Web analytics software to assess how different pages are doing on the site. DPCI helped the group implement a conversion funnel to track the number of visitors to the new site who actually contact the group. Through a "Request Information" contact form as well as a Call to Action block displayed on every page, visitors are prompted to email or call the Cardiac Surgery Group through a unique 800 number and email address set up specifically to track these conversion statistics. By assessing these metrics, the overall success of the SEO initiative can be measured by determining how many visitors take the next step and actually request more information after viewing the site.

With the launch of the new site, Cardiac Surgery Web administrators can easily add new content to their dedicated site. They can upload testimonials from their most interesting cases and place pictures and short quotes across the site. Independent from the CVI Web site, the Cardiac Surgery team can uniquely identify their content and ensure that their search engine page rankings increase. They expect to see increased traffic and conversions on the site, which in turn they hope will lead to more patients and more successful heart procedures.

The new Cardiac Surgery site is now organized and visually appealing. It leads visitors to relevant content and highlights those things at which the NYULMC Cardiac Surgery group excels. It employs cutting edge optimization technologies to complement the cutting edge work of the group. As the team continues to grow, their new site can grow with them, thanks to the Drupal content management system and its extensibility through its modular framework. As more content is added, the Cardiac Surgery team can keep their site optimized and their page rankings high, continuing to drive traffic and spread awareness about their surgical team's amazing work.