9 Best Healthcare Web Design Companies to Work With in 2026

Your healthcare or hospital website is the vital link connecting community members with the essential medical services they need to lead healthy lives. Your website is a critical launch point in the patient journey—studies show that over 60% of consumers use the web to choose a new healthcare provider or search for a service or care option, such as urgent care or imaging services.

Take a look at this example patient journey illustrating the key role healthcare websites play in transforming website visitors into patients:

Patient Journey

Step 1 of 4

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However, your organization might not have the capacity or expertise to turn your digital home into a comprehensive resource that effectively serves your community. Working with a healthcare web design company can provide the support you need to continue delivering high-quality online experiences to your audience.

This guide compares the top healthcare web design agencies to help your healthcare organization find the right fit for your digital needs, covering:

9 Best Healthcare Website Agencies to Partner With
Top Healthcare Web Design Companies: FAQs
How to Choose the Right Service Provider for Your Needs

9 Best Healthcare Website Agencies to Partner With

Company	Best For	Target Audience
Kanopi Studios	High-touch, mission-driven partnership	University medical departments, health foundations, and specialized health networks
Design de Plume	Inclusivity-powered design	Hospitals and health centers seeking inclusive, community-driven communication
Modea	Digital “front door” engineering	Large-scale hospitals, healthcare systems, and payors
Hedy & Hopp	Privacy-first marketing	Multi-location providers, health plans, and hospitals needing proven ROI
Intrepy Marketing	Private practices and surgical centers	Specialty medical practices (Orthopedics, Med Spas, etc.) and solo providers
Windmill Strategy	Medical device and life science companies	B2B MedTech and life science manufacturers
Practice Builders	Data-driven practice growth	Private clinics, urgent care centers, and dental/specialty providers
Supreme Optimization	Technical life sciences and biotech	Science-heavy companies in life sciences, pharma, and health tech ecosystems
RainCastle	Biotech branding and investor design	Biotech startups and established life science brands

1. Kanopi Studios

Location: Kanopi operates remotely, with a team spread across North America.

Best For: A high-touch, mission-driven partnership

Target Audience: University medical departments, health foundations, hospitals, and specialized health networks

Services Overview: Kanopi’s healthcare web design services are built on a philosophy that medical websites should be easy for everyone to use, from patients to content editors to healthcare providers. The Kanopi team prioritizes intuitive user interfaces, accessible functionality and content, and mobile-friendliness. Additionally, every healthcare website Kanopi builds is fully HIPAA- and at least WCAG 2.1 AA-compliant.

Key healthcare web design services include:

Research and strategy: Every web project starts with discovery and research for a deep understanding of your target audience. This ensures that your website speaks to your users’ needs, no matter who they are.
Design, user experience, and content: Kanopi creates engaging, accessible, and user-friendly healthcare content that simplifies the visitor experience and deepens audience relationships.
Web development: Kanopi’s engineers bring your website to life with essential features and functionality, from online patient portals to location maps.
Web support: The Kanopi team partners with you to drive long-term success, continually enhancing your website with security updates, feature upgrades, and revitalized navigation.

Here’s a snapshot of how Kanopi approaches patient-first design for healthcare clients. We turn messy user interfaces into clean, engaging, patient-first digital experiences.

Before & After UX Slider

The Power of Patient-First Design

✚ CareFirst

Services • Doctors • Portal • Contact

Your Health Journey,
Simplified

Access records, book doctors, and manage care from any device.

Book Appointment →

👨‍⚕️

Modern UX

🏥 GENERAL MEDICAL GROUP INC. Login | Register | Search

Quick Links

• Bill Pay
• Locations
• Careers
• Staff Info
• PDF Forms

Welcome to our Portal
Please call our office to request a PIN.

Support
Live Chat Offline.

Legacy UI

← Drag the slider to compare layouts →

Plus, 97% of Kanopi’s clients return year over year, demonstrating the team’s lasting commitment to digital healthcare success.

2. Design de Plume

Location: Canada and the U.S.

Best For: Inclusivity-powered design

Target Audience: Hospitals, health centers, and public sector organizations that serve diverse or vulnerable communities.

Services Overview: Design de Plume’s services are fueled by a commitment to inclusivity and honoring indigenous traditions. Their services include strategy, branding, website design, and campaigns. Some of their healthcare clients include the Johns Hopkins Center for Indigenous Health and the Maamwesying Ontario Health Team (MOHT).

3. Modea

Location: Headquarters in Blacksburg, VA

Best For: High-end digital “front door” product engineering

Target Audience: Large health systems and payors seeking sophisticated digital consumer experiences.

Services Overview: Modea partners with healthcare organizations to build and optimize their online resources. Their services include digital strategy, UX design, web development, electronic health record (EHR) integration, and HIPAA compliance. Their work has helped clients increase website conversions, site speed, and digital revenue.

4. Hedy & Hopp

Location: Remote operations

Best For: Privacy-first marketing and HIPAA-compliant attribution

Target Audience: Large health systems, payors, and multi-location providers who need to prove marketing ROI.

Services Overview: Hedy & Hopp is a full-service digital marketing agency for healthcare organizations. They can step in at any point to support healthcare websites, whether they need a full rebuild or optimization. They can also build a robust marketing strategy that sets up your healthcare organization for long-term growth.

5. Intrepy Healthcare Marketing

Location: Based in Orlando, FL.

Best For: Private practices and surgical centers

Target Audience: Medical practices and solo providers

Services Overview: Intrepy takes a data-driven approach to healthcare marketing, leveraging real-world experience to provide tailored services that healthcare organizations need. Their services include medical SEO, web design, video production, paid advertising, and more. Clients have seen increases in organic website traffic and appointment booking after working with Intrepy.

6. Windmill Strategy

Location: Based in Minneapolis, MN, with clients across the U.S.

Best For: Medical device and life science companies

Target Audience: B2B MedTech

Services Overview: Windmill Strategy provides digital marketing services to B2B marketers with complex offerings. They help medical businesses establish leadership in their sector, showcase their offerings more effectively, and generate leads. They also build websites for life sciences organizations that speak to many audiences, from healthcare professionals and scientists to patients.

7. Practice Builders

Location: Headquarters in Durham, NC

Best For: Data-driven practice growth

Target Audience: Small-to-medium size clinics

Services Overview: Practice Builders has been in the healthcare digital marketing space for over 45 years. They help practices grow through web design, reputation management, SEO, and social media marketing. Their clients range from medical offices to dental practices and other specialties.

8. Supreme Optimization

The Supreme Optimization website homepage

Location: Remote/global capabilities

Best For: Technical life sciences and biotech

Target Audience: Scientific organizations needing Ph.D.-level strategists to communicate complex healthcare or life science products.

Services Overview: Supreme Optimization is a full-service marketing agency for life science organizations. Their global team includes 70+ Ph.D. scientist-marketers, ensuring they have deep knowledge of life science topics. Their team helps orgs maximize their ROI through smart UX and data-driven intelligence.

9. RainCastle Communications

The RainCastle Communications website homepage

Location: Headquarters in Needham, MA

Best For: Biotech branding and investor-focused design

Target Audience: Biotechnology

Services Overview: RainCastle Communications builds B2B websites for life sciences, healthcare technology, and professional services. They take a strategic approach to web optimization, from thoughtful discovery and design to ongoing optimization. Their industry expertise allows them to achieve strong results while reducing risks.

Top Healthcare Web Design Companies: FAQs

How does healthcare web design differ from standard web design?

Healthcare sites face significantly higher stakes than other sectors; they must balance complex regulatory compliance (HIPAA, ADA) with a patient-first UX that reduces anxiety and is easy to use for web visitors who are often stressed or in a hurry.

Why is industry-specific experience so important?

Experienced agencies already understand clinical workflows, medical SEO, and the specific trust signals needed to convert a visitor into a patient, so they don’t need to be brought up to speed on the ins and outs of your industry.

What is the average timeline for a healthcare website build?

Timelines depend on scope, but they generally range from a few months to significantly longer for enterprise-level organizations with complex integrations, such as EHRs and patient portals.

What are the non-negotiable compliance standards?

Any reputable agency must guarantee HIPAA compliance for data privacy and Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1 Level AA accessibility standards.

How do agencies protect sensitive patient information (PHI)?

Top firms implement SSL encryption, secure data storage, and encrypted form submissions to ensure that any data transmitted, from appointment requests to bill pay, is protected from breaches.

What features do patients value most on a healthcare site?

Data shows that 94% of consumers prioritize easy navigation on the websites they use. Other essential healthcare site features include intuitive search, mobile-friendly appointment scheduling, provider directories, and secure patient portals.

Why is mobile-first design critical in healthcare?

With over 64% of web traffic originating from mobile phones, patients need to be able to find directions or book care while on the go, often while juggling other stressful tasks like childcare and jobs. That means a mobile-friendly interface is critical to help them complete essential tasks.

How is accessibility handled for diverse patient needs?

Agencies should follow WCAG guidelines by creating designs that facilitate keyboard navigation, provide high color contrast for the visually impaired, are screen reader compatible, and offer clear, jargon-free content.

How much does a professional healthcare website cost?

Pricing varies widely based on the number of pages, custom features (such as telehealth integrations), and the level of ongoing support required.

How can we measure the ROI of a new website?

A top-quality agency will track specific metrics such as increases in new patient inquiries, online appointment bookings, and improved search engine rankings for key medical terms. You can use this data to evaluate whether your site is serving your goals or whether you need to adjust your strategy to improve outcomes.

How to Choose the Right Service Provider for Your Needs

Ensure specialty alignment. If your healthcare organization requires specialized functionality, ensure the web design provider you work with can accommodate your needs. For example, a pediatric care clinic needs a balance of professional trust for parents and a friendly, approachable aesthetic. This often requires multilingual content options and quick links for vaccine schedules or dosage charts.

💡 Pro Tip: Ask for a “Design Persona” review. A provider should be able to explain how their design choices specifically appeal to both the logical needs of a parent/patient and the emotional comfort of the user.

View portfolios. Explore case studies and client stories from potential providers to see whether their services and deliverables align with your requirements. Verify that their past work includes high-quality medical imagery and engaging video storytelling. Also, browse their past projects on a mobile device to ensure complete mobile compatibility.

💡 Pro Tip: Don’t just look at the homepages. Navigate to a deep resource page on your phone (e.g., a dosage chart or provider directory). If you have to pinch and zoom to read it, they aren’t truly mobile-optimized.

Ask for references. Don’t just take their word for it—ask potential agencies for references from past clients so you fully understand their approach with healthcare providers. For instance, you may ask a reference, “How did the agency handle situations where a timeline needed to be extended due to a new compliance requirement?”

💡 Pro Tip: Ask this exact question: “Can you describe a time this agency caught a compliance or security risk before you did?” This reveals whether they are proactive partners or just order-takers.

Verify HIPAA compliance and security standards. Ensure the provider you choose complies with digital HIPAA guidelines and offers top-level security standards. Confirm they implement multi-factor authentication (MFA) for all logins, SSL encryption for every form, and secure off-site backups.

💡 Pro Tip: If a provider says, “Our hosting is HIPAA-compliant, so your site is too,” keep looking. HIPAA compliance requires specific encryption at the application level (how the forms handle data), not just where the files are stored.

Ensure custom accessibility. Ensure custom accessibility. Your web design partner should be able to tailor your site’s accessibility to your unique audience. For example, if your organization serves populations with low vision and blindness, your web provider should be able to build your website to accommodate these needs, including high color contrast, audio descriptions, and other essentials.

💡 Pro Tip: Ask for an accessibility audit report from a previous project. If they can’t produce one, they likely aren’t testing for screen readers or low-vision users.

Ask about EHR integration. Ask specifically if they have integrated with your exact EHR system, such as Epic, Oracle Health, PracticeSuite, or athenaOne, as the technical lift varies significantly between platforms. Ensure they can seamlessly link to or embed patient portals so users can access test results and medical history without a confusing login experience.

💡 Pro Tip: Integration isn’t “one size fits all.” Ask: “Do you use a native API integration for [Epic/Oracle], or are you just skinning an external login page?” The latter often leads to a disjointed user experience.

Explore support options. Determine the level of ongoing support your provider will offer your organization to ensure continued success. Ask about their guaranteed response time for critical security patches versus general content updates.

💡 Pro Tip: Distinguish between “Response Time” (we saw your email) and “Resolution Time” (the bug is fixed). Ensure your service-level agreement (SLA) defines both for critical security patches.

Inquire about results tracking. Evaluate how providers measure website performance and report back to clients. Beyond traffic, they should track online appointment booking rates, newsletter sign-ups, and the “Success Rate” of your internal search bar.

💡 Pro Tip: Ask them to set up “Conversion Funnels” that track how many visitors to a service page actually complete an “Appointment Request” form.

Wrapping Up

Finding the right web design provider for your healthcare organization is as much about relationship building as it is about wireframes and branding strategies. When you can find an agency that truly cares about your organization, deeply understands its needs, and is devoted to its success, you can build an online presence that furthers your healthcare mission.

For more information, check out these additional healthcare web design resources:

12 Best Healthcare Website Design Examples & Why They Work. Explore effective examples of healthcare website designs for inspiration as you collaborate with your web design provider.
Healthcare Web Development: Your Complete Guide for 2025. Learn the basics of what goes into developing a healthcare website and how you can ensure that your site is secure and high-performing.
How to Use Healthcare Content Marketing to Drive Engagement. Discover tips for more effective content marketing, including leveraging strategic personalization and crafting compelling calls to action.

More Hands, More Impact: A Guide to Web Staff Augmentation

Denise Beyer VP of Delivery

Maintaining a strong website requires precision, collaboration, and expertise, from safeguarding data to ensuring accessibility and compliance with industry regulations. For many mission-driven, healthcare, and corporate teams, hiring an outside agency for a large website build can feel risky, especially if past experiences led to sites that didn’t meet their needs or felt disconnected from their mission. Their biggest fear is that they’ll end up with a site built in a way their internal team won’t be able to edit, support, or extend on their own.

To avoid these challenges, many organizations turn to staff augmentation to get the support they need while retaining control of the development process. It allows internal teams to maintain their autonomy while gaining the extra hands or niche expertise—like Drupal development or ADA compliance—needed to bring a website to life.

This guide explores the benefits of staff augmentation for website support and how Kanopi Studios integrates with your team to help you achieve your most ambitious digital goals.

What is staff augmentation for web teams?

Staff augmentation is an outsourcing strategy in which an organization temporarily hires external specialists to supplement its in-house web design, development, and marketing team.

4 key benefits of the staff augmentation model

Instead of outsourcing an entire project, staff augmentation provides targeted support where it’s needed most, whether that’s design, development, accessibility, or ongoing maintenance.

It’s a model that offers important benefits for teams, allowing them to:

Benefits of staff augmentation for website strategies, listed below

Maintain control over your website’s vision and execution.
Boost team capacity to meet tight timelines or handle larger projects.
Fill skills gaps with specialized expertise, such as compliance with ADA accessibility standards or HIPAA regulations.
Collaborate seamlessly with professionals who integrate into your workflow without disrupting your team’s dynamic.

At Kanopi, we’ve been offering staff augmentation and support for years, assisting clients under pressure to deliver high-quality websites that serve users, staff, and stakeholders alike.

How Kanopi Studios integrates with in-house teams

Kanopi’s web specialists understand the stress created by aggressive timelines, resource constraints, and knowledge gaps. “Nimble” is one of our core values, and offering seamless staff augmentation is one of the many ways we embody it. We’ve successfully partnered with clients and other agencies to help them achieve their website goals. We love the challenge of blending our skills with client teams to help your internal staff perform heroic feats for your end clients.

Here are a few examples of ways we’ve supported clients and their in-house teams:

Kanopi’s staff augmentation services (listed below)

Bringing expertise to fill gaps: A Fortune 50 company brought us in to develop custom Drupal modules, create secure API integrations for PPI compliance, assist with designs, keep projects on track, meet deadlines, and maintain high-quality standards.
Collaborating under tight deadlines: When a hospital system’s in-house team was stretched thin during a major redesign, we stepped in to handle development work. We delivered on time while staying aligned with the team’s goals.
Enhancing accessibility and compliance: A nonprofit provider needed updates to ensure its site met accessibility and HIPAA compliance standards. Our specialists joined their internal team to address gaps, ensuring the site was compliant, user-friendly, and patient-focused.

Examples of staff augmentation for website support

Through our robust website support services, we assisted the following organizations and their in-house marketing and web strategy teams.

The Frick Collection

The Frick Collection is a world-renowned museum and cultural institution located in New York City. The Frick website was suffering from outdated digital architecture and a rigid user experience.

We worked with the Frick Collection team to help them:

Migrate to a newer version of Drupal
Implement WCAG 2.1 AA compliance
Modernize the media uploading process

As a result, the Frick team can now manage their website much more efficiently, with simplified landing pages, enhanced workflows, and strategic automation.

Flagler College

The Flagler homepage on a mobile device and a desktop screen

Flagler is a liberal arts college in St. Augustine, Florida. The Kanopi team conducted discovery work with Flagler and found that users were confused by the navigation experience and struggled to find information about programs and financial aid.

By collaborating closely with Flagler, we were able to:

Enhance storytelling through visual cues like animations and color changes to highlight essential information
Improve the internal search experience with a user-friendly interface
Define clear user journeys using content that encourages exploration and engagement

Now, Flagler’s website has a fresh, modern design with improved page load speeds and navigation, creating a positive experience for all visitors.

International OCD Foundation (IOCDF)

The IOCDF homepage on a mobile device and a desktop screen

The IOCDF supports people with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) by connecting them to resources and conducting research. The team at IOCDF wanted to expand their website’s services and modernize their resource directory to better serve their audience.

Through our partnership with the IOCDF, we were able to:

Create a new, dynamic, scalable directory with a completely updated user journey
Develop an interactive map to clearly display information about programs and therapists
Empower the IOCDF team to update content quickly, easily, and independently moving forward

Our collaborative approach led to a website that gives both visitors and the IOCDF team a smooth user experience.

Is staff augmentation your best move?

Take this short quiz to find the most efficient way to scale your team and meet your deadlines.

Is Staff Augmentation Right for Your Team?

Answer 6 quick questions to see if external expertise is the key to your next project’s success.

Next steps

Even with a dedicated internal team, there are times when an extra set of hands or a niche skillset makes all the difference. If you have the vision but lack the specific technical hours to execute, staff augmentation is your most efficient path forward.

The Kanopi team is here to collaborate with your team, help you overcome resource challenges, and build a website that meets your current and future goals. Contact us if your latest project can use consulting services or assistance via our full spectrum of web services.

How We Give Websites Unnaturally Long Life

Grant Proulx Web Copywriter

We recently came across a very interesting blog post from our friends at Orbit Media on a subject we’ve actually wanted to cover for a while now: the average website lifespan.

They discovered that the average lifespan is two years, one month. That’s it.

A low bar, indeed.

They also point out that you can extend your website’s lifespan well beyond two measly years by following some established best practices. This is something we know about first hand here at Kanopi.

In fact, we’ve found that the websites we build for our clients regularly last 10 years or more.

So what’s our secret sauce? It comes down to two things:

how we define support, and
how we provide that support.

Both of these are based on years of experience and focus on a complete process that leads to steady improvement and intentional growth.

We focus on setting clear expectations from the start, ensuring clients understand the purpose, share our mindset, and are fully on board. It’s not just about making updates; it’s about bringing marketing, design, and development together so every change has a real impact.

In fact, it’s been a core part of how we work for so long that we see it as more than just a methodology. It reflects our mindset as an agency. And it’s the #1 reason the websites we build for our clients enjoy the longevity that they do.

If you’re curious to learn how we help clients build websites that last five times longer than the industry average, it starts with these steps:

We begin with both qualitative and quantitative research. Every project begins with qualitative and quantitative research. (If you’re unsure what the difference is or why both are equally important, check out this post.) The research we do informs our UX design and content strategy, ensuring optimal usability right from the outset — which results in fewer problems down the road and helps avoid premature obsolescence. This is why even when the budget we’re given is relatively small, we do as much research as possible with what we have. This step is far too important to omit.

We employ skilled, experienced professionals. Senior-level website designers and developers are capable of superior-quality work, faster problem-solving, and efficient project execution. This results in websites that remain performant, efficient, and relevant for years. By minimizing technical debt and ensuring adaptability, their experience and skill helps prevent costly rebuilds.

Also, we’ve found that full-time employees tend to have a more vested interest in client projects. So while we may occasionally complement our staff with contractors (who are also senior-level), our clients can trust that their projects will be handled almost entirely by full-time staff.

All the Kanopi staff, about 70 people, smiling at the camera for a group photo — The talented Kanopi staff

Support is not the same thing as maintenance.

The word ‘support’ in our industry has come to be synonymous with technical tickets and tasks. And notifying a help desk when there’s a problem with your site, and speaking with a technician to get the problem resolved, and then forgetting about them until you need them again.

Of course, this type of maintenance work is nonetheless important and we do provide it for our clients. But it has very little to do with how we define ‘support’ at Kanopi.

For us, support is about making an ongoing investment to ensure optimal functionality at all times. Long-term support is critical after your site launches.

It’s more than making sure the code works and the add-ons and features don’t glitch. Instead, it’s a process that involves ongoing evaluation and iteration, where we continually ask questions like these:

User Experience & Accessibility

Have user needs evolved?
Is the website fully responsive and optimized for different devices and browsers?
Are there any new accessibility standards or guidelines we need to implement?

SEO & Content

Is the content current? Are we keeping things fresh, adding interesting new content and archiving/repurposing older content that’s no longer relevant?
Are we monitoring search trends and adjusting our SEO strategy accordingly?
Are we leveraging AI tools or automation to enhance SEO performance?

SEM & Paid Marketing

Are our paid search campaigns (Google Ads, social media ads) optimized for ROI?
Are we testing and iterating on ad creatives and messaging for better engagement?
Are we using remarketing strategies effectively to re-engage visitors?

Conversion & Engagement

Are our landing pages optimized for conversions?
Are we A/B testing CTAs, headlines, and page layouts to improve engagement?
Are we analyzing user behavior to refine marketing strategies (e.g., heatmaps, scroll depth, click tracking)?

Brand & Positioning

Are we maintaining a consistent brand voice across all marketing channels?
Are we engaging with our audience through social media, email marketing, and community-building efforts?

Scalability & Infrastructure

Is our hosting environment still the best fit for our current traffic and resource needs?
Has the open source community recently invented or improved features that would enhance this website, or be a better fit than those we’ve previously implemented?
Are we monitoring uptime and performance metrics to prevent downtime?
Would implementing a CDN or other optimizations improve site speed?

Automation & Workflow

Can any repetitive development tasks (e.g., updates, testing, deployments) be automated?
Are there any new integrations (AI-Search, APIs, CRM, analytics tools) that could improve efficiency?

Performance & Security

Are all core, theme, and plugin/module updates applied and tested for compatibility?
Are there any deprecated functions or outdated dependencies that need refactoring?
Is the site loading efficiently (e.g., optimized images, caching, minimized scripts)?
Are security best practices being followed, such as firewalls, backups, and malware scans?

By revisiting these questions regularly, we ensure your digital presence continues to evolve with your users and the broader web landscape. And it helps us focus on what matters most: performance, usability and long-term value.

Conclusion (in convenient listicle form)

We didn’t actually set out to write this post as a how-to guide, but if you want to ensure your website enjoys unnaturally long life blessed with perpetual relevance, usability and neverending optimal results, these are the steps you’d need to follow:

Do your homework; include both quantitative and qualitative analytics as part of your thorough research process.
Entrust your strategy, design and development to the most deeply skilled, experienced team of professionals you can find. Bonus points if most of them are your full-time employees.
Transform your definition of support from something that happens only when problems occur into a mindset of constantly looking for opportunities to enhance and improve every facet of your site.

Simply commit to these three steps with every fiber of your being and your website is guaranteed to exceed the average lifespan by a great many years. And if that seems overwhelming, you can always partner with an agency that demonstrates their passion for website longevity by writing lengthy blogs.

Refresh or Rebuild: What Does Your Website Really Need?

Nikane Mallea Delivery Manager

So, you’ve noticed your website feels out of step. It looks dated. It’s hard to update. Or it just doesn’t reflect the heart of your mission anymore.

If you’ve noticed all this, your users probably have too. At this point you’re grappling with the eternal dilemma all website owners must eventually face:

Do you give it a fresh coat of paint, or start over from scratch?

As much as we’d love to ease your mind and give you a clear-cut answer, this is one of those cases where all we can offer is the frustrating yet accurate one:

It depends.

Because it all comes down to understanding what’s working, what’s not, and how you want your site to evolve.

When a refresh makes sense

Think of it like renovating a house. You’re not tearing down walls. You’re making the space work better for the people who use it. A refresh keeps your site’s foundation intact but updates the look and experience.

This is usually the right approach when your site’s essential nuts and bolts are still in good working order, meaning:

your CMS is still supported and stable (i.e. you’re already on WordPress or Modern Drupal)
your content model is mostly holding up, and a visual and functional update are all you really need.

Common refresh improvements include:

Updating your site’s design to reflect your current brand
Reworking layouts and menus so users can find what they need
Improving conversion paths like forms or calls to action
Making the site more accessible for all users (e.g. adding alt text, improving contrast, and enabling keyboard navigation)
Optimizing for mobile and faster load times
Fixing SEO gaps or updating metadata structure to improve how your content is surfaced.

The key benefit of a refresh is that you’re not starting from zero. You’re keeping what works and improving what doesn’t. It’s a practical, cost-effective way to extend the life of your site and make it easier to manage.

However, sometimes it just ain’t enough.

When it’s time for a full rebuild

Sometimes the site has deeper issues. The platform might be outdated. The backend may be difficult to manage. Or maybe your goals have grown and the site can’t keep up.

If you find yourself dealing with any of the following issues, a rebuild is usually the right call:

you’re using a platform that’s no longer supported
the code is hard to maintain and full of legacy problems
you’re introducing new features or changing how people engage with the site
you need better integrations or personalization
you keep fixing bugs without solving the real problems
your team struggles to update or publish content

A rebuild means starting fresh. You get a clean codebase. You get to redesign the frontend and backend. Most importantly, it gives you a chance to truly rethink how the content is structured and how the site supports your goals.

It’s definitely a bigger investment that may require staff augmentation, but when done correctly, it sets you up for long-term success.

Which one is right for you?

If your platform is still working and your content mostly holds up, a refresh is often the better option. It’s faster. It costs less. And it improves the experience for your team and your users.

But if your site is slowing you down or holding you back, rebuilding may actually save time and money over the long run. A rebuild clears out technical debt and sets you up for real growth.

Or, to explain it in handy Venn diagram format:

Venn diagram showing how optimal website health is at the intersection of smart user experience design and a strong technical foundation.

Remember, the best way to avoid the damage that an outdated website can cause while saving as much money as possible is to stay focused on two things:

What your users need.
What’s going on in the backend (i.e. making sure the tech is still doing its job).

While keeping both in balance requires ongoing commitment, it will also help you stretch your site’s life and your budget.

Happily Ever After: Why Long-Term Website Support is Critical After Your Site Launches

Cliff Persaud Director of Strategy and Creative

Launching a new website is exciting for any organization. After months of planning, preparation and hard work, your new site experience is ready for all of your users to enjoy. But here’s the truth that many organizations overlook: launch day is actually the first day of your project, not the finish line.

Websites are not static; they evolve and change as your organization grows and they need ongoing attention and refinement to remain effective. If you want your website to continue to engage your audience while evolving to meet your ongoing business goals, long-term support should be part of your website strategy from day one.

Support Is More Than Just Bug Fixes and Security Updates

Many people assume website support is just about keeping the lights on with bug fixes and security updates. While these are crucial to the ongoing health of your site, a comprehensive support strategy goes far beyond the basic upkeep required to keep your site online. A successful long-term support strategy should always include:

Design Revisions: As design trends shift, your website should remain visually appealing and aligned with modern aesthetics.
Information Architecture Adjustments: Content organization and structure should evolve based on user behavior and your business goals.
UX and Navigation Enhancements: Making it easier for visitors to find what they need improves conversions and engagement.
Performance Optimization: Ensuring fast load times and smooth interactions keeps users engaged and prevents bounce rates from climbing.
Regular testing: Ensuring your site runs smoothly while identifying opportunities for further optimization.
Conversion Optimization: Regularly check CTAs, forms and other conversion points to make sure they are driving conversions.
Accessibility compliance is a moving target: Stay current on WCAG requirements and run frequent accessibility checks on your website.

With a well-thought-out support plan, your website remains a valuable asset rather than slowly declining over time.

Consider The “Afters.” Where Will Your Website Be in 12 to 24 Months?

Is it still performing at its peak? Will your content still be relevant and easy to update? Will your navigation still make sense as your organization grows? Without ongoing support, websites can quickly become outdated, difficult to navigate, or misaligned with your current business objectives. If there’s one thing you can count on in the digital world, it’s change. Your website needs ongoing care and support in order to adapt accordingly.

A well-maintained website not only stays fresh and engaging but also avoids the slow decline that plagues many neglected sites. Instead of scrambling to redesign an underperforming site every few years, ongoing support ensures continuous improvement and a fresh experience for users.

The Cost Benefits of Long-Term Support

Long-term website support can significantly extend the lifespan of your site, and reduce the need for costly redesigns every few years (we have one client whose site we’ve been maintaining for 10 years!). Instead of dealing with an expensive overhaul every three years, long-term support allows you to make strategic, iterative improvements over time. This spreads out costs, making it a more budget-friendly strategy while ensuring your website remains competitive and up to date. It also allows for the maintaining strong SEO performance and a positive user experience which means you won’t frustrate potential customers or advocates for your mission due to outdated design or functionality.

Your Website Deserves A Long-Term Strategy

If you’re considering redesigning your website, don’t just focus on launch day, think about what comes after. Ideally you’ll build your site for longevity, but additionally a long-term support plan will make your site last even longer. Partnering with an agency (shameless plug: like us) that offers long-term support ensures your website continues to work for you and remains relevant well into the future. Ongoing support is a cost-effective way for you to stay competitive, maximize your investment, and keep your website thriving—not just surviving.

More hands, more impact: when to use staff augmentation

Denise Beyer VP of Delivery

Sometimes you need a few extra hands.

When it comes to managing their digital presence, mission-driven organizations face unique challenges. Maintaining a strong website requires precision, collaboration, and expertise — from safeguarding data to ensuring accessibility and compliance with industry regulations.

For many teams, hiring an outside agency for a large website build can feel risky — especially if past experiences led to sites that didn’t meet their needs or felt disconnected from their mission. Their biggest fear is that they’ll end up with a site that’s built in a way their internal team won’t be able to edit, support, or extend on their own.

To avoid these challenges, many organizations are turning to staff augmentation to get the support they need while retaining control of the process. It allows their internal teams to keep their autonomy while getting the extra help or expertise needed to get their website across the finish line.

How can staff augmentation help your website?

Instead of outsourcing an entire project, staff augmentation provides targeted support where it’s needed most — whether that’s design, development, accessibility, or ongoing maintenance.

It’s a model that offers some important benefits for teams, allowing them to:

Maintain control over the vision and execution of your website.
Boost team capacity to meet tight timelines or handle larger projects.
Fill skills gaps with specialized expertise, like compliance with ADA accessibility standards, security needs, or HIPAA regulations.
Collaborate seamlessly with professionals who integrate into your workflow without disrupting your team’s dynamic.

Here at Kanopi, we’ve been offering staff augmentation for years — often helping clients under pressure to deliver high-quality websites that serve users, staff, and stakeholders alike.

How we partner with organizations

Clients who partner with us for staff augmentation often prefer us to sign non-disclosure agreements, so we can’t share those specific case studies. However, we can list a few non-specific examples of ways we’ve supported clients and their in-house teams:

Bringing expertise to fill gaps: A Fortune 50 company brought us in to strengthen their team with custom Drupal module development, secure API integration for PPI compliance, assist with designs, keep projects on track, meet deadlines, and maintain high-quality standards.
Collaborating under tight deadlines: When a hospital system’s in-house team was stretched thin during a major redesign, we stepped in to handle development work. We delivered on time while staying aligned with the team’s goals.
Enhancing accessibility and compliance: A nonprofit provider required updates to ensure their site met both accessibility and HIPAA compliance standards. Our specialists joined their internal team to address gaps, ensuring the site was compliant, user-friendly, and patient-focused.

One example we can cite is the UCSF Department of Surgery. We partnered with their IT team to develop a template for 80+ sites, allowing each to feature unique content or share content across multiple domains.

Ready to enhance your team?

Even with a dedicated internal team, there are times when an extra set of hands — or a niche skillset — can make all the difference. If you need staff augmentation for your website, we’re here to collaborate with your team, helping you overcome resource challenges and build a website that meets both your current and future goals.

Let’s create something amazing together. Contact us if your latest project could use consulting services or helping hands within our full spectrum of web services.

9 Standout Hospital Web Development Examples & Expert Tips

Allison Manley Director of Marketing & Communications

Your hospital web development is vital to modern patient care in the digital age.

With 89% of patients in the U.S. Googling their health symptoms before going to the doctor, your hospital website is essential to serving your community’s needs and providing accurate, trustworthy information.

Your website serves as a virtual front door for patients and potential visitors, providing them with essential information about the hospital’s services, specialties, and facilities. A user-friendly structure and design instills credibility and enhances the patient experience by allowing easy access to critical details, such as appointment scheduling, contact information, and directions.

To develop your website effectively and ensure it supports your community, we’ve created this guide, which covers:

Why Medical Website Development Matters
Features to Include in Your Hospital Website
Top Hospital Web Development Examples and Best Practices
Tips for Hospital Website Compliance
How to Maintain Your Hospital Website
How Kanopi’s Hospital Web Development Services Can Help

Why Medical Website Development Matters

Before someone goes to the doctor, they’ll likely browse through a couple of physicians, make sure they’re in their healthcare network, scroll through times for an appointment— and do it all online.

People also turn to your website to answer medical queries, get updated on recent healthcare news, donate to your institution, and access an online health portal where they can update appointments and pay bills. A well-developed site helps to:

Craft a recognizable, highly reputable brand. If your hospital website doesn’t exist or contains outdated resources, it’s more than likely that people will take one look at it and deem your institution unreliable.
Differentiate yourself from other hospitals. A well-designed website communicates your commitment to patient-centered care, innovation, and technology, which can set you apart from competitors.
Build customer loyalty. To build customer/patient loyalty, your website needs to establish itself as a reliable medical web resource so that individuals can use it to make appointments, contact doctors, and pay bills.
Offer 24-hour patient communication and information. Your website provides patients with important information and resources outside of normal office hours.
Simplify marketing for hospital events and needs. Use your website to promote hospital events, streamline donation appeals, and attract more patients.

While it may feel daunting to get started with hospital web development, it’s a worthwhile investment. Improving your online presence is the first step toward attracting and retaining more patients.

Features to Include in Your Hospital Website

Whether someone is coming in for a quick check-up or a visit to the ER, your hospital website is an integral part of their journey. To ensure it serves your community to the best of its ability, your website needs these specific site features:

Simple navigation and menus
A list of services your hospital provides
Appointment booking tools
Contact details
Interactive advanced search functionality
Doctor/team information
AI-powered chatbots to answer patient questions and personalize the visitor experience
A secure, PCI-compliant online payment portal
Blog/news/press releases about your hospital
Description of departments
Medical advice
Feedback forms (including surveys and polls)
Hospital directions and parking information
Telemedicine functionality (such as patient portal login pages or scheduling resources)
Mobile-responsive design

Use these features as a checklist to ensure your website is a comprehensive resource for your patients, staff, and community members.

Download our free eBook to learn how to make your hospital website last

Top Hospital Web Development Examples and Best Practices

The best way to determine if your hospital website is up to par is to look at other successful sites. Review these hospital website examples to inspire your web development efforts:

Simple navigation: Global Brain Health Institute
Clear CTAs: Mayo Clinic
Patient-focused design: UCSF Department of Surgery
Consistent, bold branding: Cleveland Clinic
Accessibility: Mount Sinai
Inclusivity: Northwestern Medicine
Mobile-friendliness: Johns Hopkins Medicine
Accurate, updated information: Yale New Haven Hospital
Streamlined user experience: Colorado Health Foundation

1. Simple navigation: Global Brain Health Institute

This screenshot of the Global Brain Health Institute’s fellowship directory stands out for its simple hospital web development.

The Global Brain Health Institute (GBHI), an organization dedicated to protecting the world from brain disease and other health threats, wanted to ensure that visitors could easily navigate their site and locate different programs, services, and projects.

As a result, they worked with Kanopi to add a navigation bar that is logically organized and prominently placed throughout the website, so users can quickly find what they need. The site also features a fellowship directory that includes a search bar and filters. This is useful for medical students interested in pursuing a fellowship in a particular specialty, as well as for patients who want to learn more about the expertise of the hospital’s staff.

Why simple navigation is essential for hospital websites: As soon as someone lands on your hospital website, they should be able to find the content or service they seek. To ensure your site is easily navigable, consider mapping out the patient journey to better understand how people get to your site and what they do once they get there.

2. Clear CTAs: Mayo Clinic

This screenshot of the Mayo Clinic’s homepage shows how to effectively incorporates CTAs into hospital web development.

The Mayo Clinic is a nonprofit academic medical center, known for its expertise in many areas of medicine and for providing high-quality care to patients. Their homepage features multiple calls to action (CTAs) that encourage visitors to schedule an appointment, donate, or learn more about a particular medical condition or procedure.

By including clear CTAs on their website, the Mayo Clinic helps visitors understand what medical services they provide, what treatments are available, and how to seek help if they need it.

Why clear calls to action matter for hospital websites: Carefully-placed CTAs let website visitors know exactly where and how to complete their intended action. As you create your own, consider the specific actions that you want visitors to take. Then, use clear and concise language to convey your purpose. For example, you might say “Schedule an Appointment Today” or “Learn More about Our Cancer Center.”

3. Patient-focused design: UCSF Department of Surgery

The UCSF Department of Surgery website homepage

The Department of Surgery at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) is a leading surgical department with a rich history of research and scientific advancements. UCSF worked with Kanopi to create a positive, patient-focused website experience. We evaluated which site elements matter the most to users using deep discovery work and prototypes.

As a result, we helped enhance this website with a variety of user-friendly fixes, including:

Simple domain access with consistency across topics and departments
Human-led imagery of UCSF doctors and videos highlighting the patient experience
A mobile-first approach with a responsive design

Why patient-focused design is essential for hospitals: Your patients are the heart and soul of your hospital, and appealing to their needs will help you maintain high audience engagement. Patients should feel welcomed and comfortable using your website and signing up for your services. A friendly, patient-focused design helps foster a sense of community.

4. Consistent, bold branding: Cleveland Clinic

As seen in this screenshot of the Cleveland Clinic’s homepage, it’s important to use consistent, bold branding in hospital web development.

Cleveland Clinic is one of the top multispeciality academic medical centers in the country. To establish a strong, recognizable brand and reinforce their reputation, they included bold, eye-catching colors throughout their website.

Notice how all of the elements on their homepage are blue and green. When patients come across these colors in other mediums and materials, they’ll likely associate them with Cleveland Clinic.

Why consistency and bold branding is important for hospital websites: Consistent branding builds trust between patients and your hospital, which can be especially important in the healthcare industry where patients often have significant concerns about their health and well-being.

Adding color is a popular medical website design trend, with vivid and deep colors being sported on many successful hospital websites. Consider your site’s color palette before diving into web development to make sure your website branding is consistent throughout its pages.

5. Accessibility: Mount Sinai

This screenshot of Mount Sinai’s homepage contains an accessibility tool, an important element of hospital web development.

Mount Sinai’s healthcare system prides itself on providing a wide range of services to diverse populations, including medical education, research, and patient care. To meet their patients’ varied needs, they prioritized creating an accessible website.

The accessibility tool in the bottom footer allows visitors to use a screen reader, navigate using their keyboards, and change the color contrast, if needed.

Why accessible design matters for hospital websites: Having an inaccessible hospital website will not only turn away those who might need your services the most but paints your entire establishment in a negative light. Because of the industry that you’re in, maintaining full compliance with the ADA and WCAG is essential. You want your entire community to feel accepted and at ease with your services, especially when it concerns medical care.

6. Inclusivity: Northwestern Medicine

This is a screenshot of Northwestern Medicine’s website, which stands out for its inclusive hospital web development.

Northwestern Medicine has a number of hospitals, all of which are committed to providing inclusive care to patients of all backgrounds and demographics. Maintaining an inclusive website is important for Northwestern Medicine, as it allows them to better connect with their patients and provide them with the resources and care they need.

Their Patients and Visitors page is extremely comprehensive, with CTAs that address a wide variety of concerns and questions.

Why inclusivity is important for hospital websites: Your hospital website content needs to represent the voice of all of your users, whether it’s patients, frontline workers, researchers, or caregivers.

7. Mobile-friendliness: Johns Hopkins Medicine

This is a screenshot of Johns Hopkins’ website homepage, which leverages mobile-friendly hospital web development.

Johns Hopkins Medicine is known for its world-class medical facilities, including hospitals, clinics, and research centers. As a leading healthcare provider, they needed to keep up with changes in technology by creating a mobile-friendly website.

Their mobile-responsive site design allows patients to schedule appointments, access medical information, and communicate with healthcare providers, regardless of the device they’re using.

Why mobile-friendliness matters for hospital websites: With over 60% of the global internet population using a mobile device to access the internet, your hospital web design must work on all different screen sizes. For patients or families already in the hospital or waiting room, the ability to quickly look something up on their phone or tablet is critical.

Most content management systems (CMS) can create a mobile-responsive site automatically. However, there are some easy ways you can ensure your site’s responsiveness. For instance, use large buttons, a vertical layout, and avoid large chunks of text.

8. Accurate, updated information: Yale New Haven Hospital

This screenshot of Yale New Haven Hospital’s homepage features emergency room wait times, an important aspect of hospital web development.

Yale New Haven Hospital provides a wide range of medical services to its local community. As with any hospital, their website needs to provide accurate and reliable information about their services, facilities, and medical personnel. That way, patients can make informed decisions about their care.

Perhaps most notably, Yale New Haven’s homepage features emergency room wait times, informing patients where to seek care and what to expect when they arrive.

Why accurate and updated information is essential for hospital websites: When it comes to healthcare, accuracy is non-negotiable. It’s critical that your web content is consistently updated and provides the most high-quality information available.

9. Streamlined user experience: Colorado Health Foundation

The Colorado Health Foundation (CHF) is a statewide organization that aims to improve the health and well-being of all Colorado residents. The CHF partnered with Kanopi to clean up their site’s navigation and streamline the user experience.

Based on our research and expertise, our developers instituted impactful changes. We condensed the main menu to a cleaner version focused on the items that matter most to users. We also improved the visitor journey by:

Ensuring consistent page layout
Incorporating translation support
Adding accordions to streamline page design with collapsable text
Building a data display to foster accountability for the organization’s racial and health equity goals
Enhancing accessibility with clearer fonts, tab navigation, and meaningful links

Why a streamlined user experience matters for hospitals: Patients visiting your hospital’s website may be rushed or anxious. A simplified user experience connects them with the information or resources they need quickly and seamlessly.

Tips for Hospital Website Compliance

Your hospital website will likely have multiple services that collect and store patient data, whether that includes a health portal, appointment tool, or bill payment.

With this in mind, your hospital web development practices must follow regulations like the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) and Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act (HITECH):

HIPAA is an act created by the American government to protect patient data such as names, phone numbers, email addresses, social security numbers, and medical records.
HITECH extends HIPAA requirements to bring additional benefits and protection to patients. This regulation establishes that patients should always have access to their health information online, and if hospitals do have a data violation, patients should be notified immediately. Depending on the seriousness of the data breach, your hospital may also incur various penalties and fees.

To ensure your website and software solutions not only comply with HIPAA and the HITECH Act but go above and beyond to ensure data protection, you need the following safeguards:

Tech safeguards include encryption software, data backups, and firewalls. Assess the state of your current healthcare cybersecurity system to ensure you have the proper safeguards in place.
Physical safeguards include only granting access to material records or electronic devices with the aforementioned data after proper authorization.
Administrative safeguards include the guidelines your hospital sets up to ensure that internal procedures comply with HIPAA.

Once these safety nets are in place, add a privacy policy statement to your website explaining your commitment to HIPAA and HITECH compliance. Publicizing this statement will help you build trust with current and prospective patients.

How to Maintain Your Hospital Website

Hospital website maintenance is crucial to ensure your site remains a high-performing, accessible, and convenient resource for your audience. Follow these best practices to future-proof and maintain your website over time.

Adopt a continuous improvement approach

Web Design Process Comparison

Traditional Waterfall Process

Strategy

Design

Development

Launch

Drawbacks

Rigid & Less FlexibleChanges are difficult and expensive once development begins.

Costly & Time-ConsumingLarge upfront investment with lengthy timelines.

Quickly OutdatedWebsite can become stale shortly after launch.

Growth-Driven Design Cycle

Benefits

Save Time & MoneySmaller initial investment with continuous improvements.

Always Fresh & RelevantContinuous optimization prevents site staleness.

Data-Driven DecisionsInformed improvements based on real user behavior.

Traditional website design and development takes a linear approach, with a clear pathway from strategy to implementation. However, a growth-driven, continuous improvement approach involves an ongoing, iterative process of:

Strategizing new website innovations
Implementing website changes to test your hypotheses
Tracking results and adjusting your approach based on feedback

This perspective pushes you to constantly update your website based on evolving best practices. Plus, you can avoid major site overhauls, which can cost your organization time and money.

Update your website according to accessibility innovations

New accessibility innovations are released constantly, helping to improve the online experience for users with temporary or permanent disabilities. Intelligent eyewear, a hands-free mouse, and AI-powered assistants are just a few of the exciting innovations we’re seeing this year.

Your website maintenance process should include accessibility updates to ensure your site stays usable and functional for all users. Take the time to adjust to the impacts of the following potential changes:

New assistive technology. Innovations in screen reader technology, AI assistants, assistive voice solutions, and other accessible technologies change how individuals interact with your web content. Make sure your website is structured properly, with clear navigation and heading structures, so it’s compatible with all assistive technology.
Accessibility testing techniques. Alongside updates to assistive technology itself, the way web designers can test sites for accessibility constantly evolves as well. Stay up to date on the best automated testing tools available as well as techniques for manually assessing your site. Resources like Kanopi’s guide to accessibility testing can be a huge help because our developers use these tools every day to ensure the sites we build or refresh are completely accessible and compatible with assistive technologies.
Changes to legal requirements. Laws like the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and the Section 508 Amendment to the Rehabilitation Act govern web accessibility in the United States. Keep this legislation in mind as you refresh your website for accessibility. If you want to expand into new markets in other countries, be aware of their accessibility legislation to remain compliant.

Here at Kanopi, we take a holistic approach to web accessibility, learning about your website’s visitors and their unique accessibility needs to build a strategy that works best for your organization. Learn more about our approach in this short video:

Conduct technical fixes

The technical elements of your hospital website play a major role in your users’ online experience. Technical issues can slow down your website and leave it vulnerable to security breaches.

To keep your website in top shape, prioritize fixing the following technical issues:

Broken links. Broken links can hurt your SEO performance and create a negative user experience. Use an automated tool like Semrush or Google Search Console to identify and correct broken links with mass updates.
Security risks. Run core updates for your CMS and plugins or modules, encrypt sensitive data, require strong passwords for CMS users, and enable two-factor website authentication. In addition, host regular security training sessions with your team to ensure everyone is up to date with the latest security risks and best practices.
Slow page loading speed. Measure page load speed using a free tool like Google’s PageSpeed Insights or Lighthouse. Common performance issues include large image files, unused JavaScript or CSS, and large network payloads.

Set up recurring technical reports to get ongoing updates about your site’s health. Continuously monitoring your site and fixing performance issues will help you avoid smaller problems snowballing into major complications down the line.

Update your content

Your website’s content equips your audience with the crucial medical information they need to make informed decisions about their health. Updated, accurate content helps raise your hospital’s authority level and gives more credibility to your institution.

In your website maintenance process, make the following content updates:

SEO updates. Use SEO tools like Ahrefs or Moz to keep an eye on your search engine rankings. If any of your website’s most important pages, like high-value blog posts or your homepage, start slipping in the rankings, make a plan to refresh the content to enhance its SEO appeal. For example, you could better incorporate the main keyword, add more engaging visual elements, or refresh the page with updated health information.
Audience shifts. Your hospital’s core audience and their content preferences may change over time. New people could move into your coverage area with new online medical needs. Or, audience members may begin expressing interest in different blog post topics than what you normally cover. Pay attention to metrics like blog post engagement rates, time spent on each page, and audience demographics to ensure your content aligns with your audience’s interests and needs.
Interactive content additions. Interactive content is on an upward trajectory right now as more consumers seek out these engaging online elements. Interactive content can also lead to 2x the conversion rate of passive (or static) content. Find opportunities to incorporate this content into your hospital website, whether through online health assessments, quizzes, maps, surveys, or polls.

These content updates and the website maintenance process in general are most successful when working with a dedicated web development partner that has expertise and experience in maintaining websites like yours. Read on for an inside look at how the Kanopi team approaches hospital web development support.

How Kanopi’s Hospital Web Development Services Can Help

Partner with a website support and development agency to ensure you’re doing everything possible to improve your hospital website.

Kanopi is a top partner for hospitals with a continuous improvement team that has helped develop over 150 active sites. No matter what stage your hospital website is at, our team can conduct a full website redesign project or build it from scratch.

Here are our services:

Content management system support tailored to user needs—whether you use Drupal or WordPress as a CMS, we have experts who can customize each platform to align with your organization’s needs and branding.
Custom module/plugin development—if you can’t find the right tool to perform a specific action, our coding team can create it.
WCAG 2.1 AA accessibility standards to ensure that anyone can access and engage with your healthcare services as needed.
Custom integrations for an online health portal or other solutions that can expand your hospital website’s capabilities.
Responsive, mobile-first design because we know that your online hospital services should be accessible from any device, anywhere.
Technical SEO strategy and implementation so that if anyone looks up your hospital’s name, a specific doctor, or a program, your hospital website is the first option on the search results page.

Even after your optimized site is officially launched, we will continue working alongside your hospital to create a website growth plan. This ensures that your site is sustainable for as long as possible and will support your hospital as it evolves.

Check out our healthcare web development work to see our guidance and expertise in action.

Screengrab of the on-demand webinar from Tim Tufts about the UCSF Department of Surgery project

Want to dig deeper into how Kanopi works with healthcare clients? To learn about how UCSF Department of Surgery and Kanopi worked together, check out our webinar “It Takes a Village: Managing a Large Community in a Website Redesign.”

Additional Resources

For more information on website development, check out these resources:

Drupal vs. WordPress: Which One is Right For You? Drupal and WordPress are two popular content management systems that hospitals depend on. Learn which one is right for your organization in this guide!
10 Best Healthcare Website Design Examples (and Expert Tips). Your healthcare website is a vital resource for your community. This guide explores tips and best practices for optimizing your healthcare website design.
Inclusive & Accessible Forms. Need to collect information via a form on your website? Forms ask your users to provide personal data, so ensure those forms are inclusive and accessible.
Webinar: Website Best Practices for an Aging Population. Kanopi’s Cliff Persaud discusses the challenges and opportunities facing healthcare providers and how they can ensure their website design meets the needs of aging patients.

Are WordPress page builders right for your organization?

Denise Beyer VP of Delivery

Page builders are a great tool, but they’re not always the right solution. If you’re a small organization with minimal updates to your website — like changing your schedule or hours — page builders can be a fantastic option. They are simple, cost-effective, and user-friendly, which makes them a good choice for organizations with straightforward needs.

Common WordPress page builders:

These are the ones we come across most frequently here at Kanopi:

Elementor
Divi
WP Bakery
Beaver Builder

Why people like page builders:

One of the main reasons page builders are popular is because they save time and reduce costs. You don’t need a full development setup or specialized tools to get started.

Everything can be done right in the site’s interface, meaning there’s no need for code repositories (GitHub)or additional software licenses.

Heck, you can even use a public computer at your local library to make changes. This simplicity means you don’t need developers to build and manage a site with a page builder.

The trouble with page builders:

However, it’s hard to have it both ways; if your organization needs frequent custom updates, a page builder may not be the best fit. Page builders are often performance-heavy, which can slow down your site due to their reliance on plugins. And while they can be useful, they sometimes cause accessibility issues (see below) or limit flexibility. If you’re after a high level of customization or specific functionality, you might hit a wall with a page builder.

What about accessibility and performance with page builders?

Glad you asked: when it comes to accessibility and performance, page builders aren’t as “easy” and “worry free” as they may look.

Accessibility issues:

Semantic HTML: Page builders tend not to produce semantic markup. This can prevent screen readers from properly interpreting the content.
Keyboard Navigation: Page builders create very complex HTML for page and component layouts which can create barriers for keyboard navigation or even keyboard traps. Menus can be extremely complex, making it difficult to even navigate the menu with a keyboard, let alone a mouse.
ARIA Attributes: Page builders do their best to utilize these but it is very easy to have them incorrect, or missing.
Color Contract: Color is managed by the content editor which gives them great power and control. However this also very quickly can lead to an inaccessible site as the color contrast can easily and quickly fall out of the range of accessible.
Focus state: Focus states are used by keyboard navigation. These interactive states can easily become mismanaged or used in page builders creating a disorienting experience for users.

Performance issues:

Bloated code base: As mentioned earlier, page builders typically have very bloated code, using a lot of markup to create simple layouts, and creating loading a large amount of JS and CSS on pages. This slows down page load time.
Large DOM size: to piggyback on the above, complex layouts and long pages can have a large DOM size due to the number of elements that it creates. This slows down the page load as you have to wait for all those elements to render
Render blocking: Because they can load a lot of resources, internal and external CSS and JS files, those external resources may not be managed properly blocking page load until those payloads are downloaded first.
Database bloat: Page Builders can store a ton of data in the database. Depending on your site size and host, this can drastically slow down your overall performance

In short: if you’re truly trying to build accessible, performant, websites there are still many things to work around and manage with the use of page builder tools.

(FYI: we’re big into accessibility here at Kanopi and write about it a lot, so please reach out of you have questions around this).

Moving Beyond Page Builders

We’ve worked with several clients to help them move from page builders to more sustainable, flexible solutions. Here are a few examples:

California Prevention Training Center (CAPTC) – Divi

Issue: This website was over-engineered with Divi. We redesigned and overhauled the site, removing the unnecessary complexity of the page builder and improving the overall user experience and site performance.

California Prevention Training Center (CAPTC) home page before we removed it from a Divi builder

California Prevention Training Center (CAPTC) home page after the rebuild

The California Prevention Training Center (CAPTC) website before (left) and after (right) moving off of Divi.

Carmanah – Divi

Current Status: The site was outdated and had an overly complex backend. The client came to us seeking a redesign, with a focus on improving performance and security. We’re migrating away from Divi, which will streamline the website’s backend, improve load times, and enhance the admin user experience.

Adaptive Biotech – Elementor

Issue: Over time, the page builder became a hindrance, especially with accessibility and content entry limitations. We rebuilt key components of the site using Gutenberg blocks and Advanced Custom Fields (ACF). This approach removes the need for the page builder and its plugins, improving site performance and reducing load times.

DonorSearch – Visual Composer

Issue: The client couldn’t make content edits without breaking the layout. We rolled out a more manageable solution, using blocks within the editor and ACF to create custom blocks. This enabled a flexible redesign and content migration, with a focus on creating a dynamic, easily editable website. The new DonorSearch design also allowed for different content variations, so the site remains fresh and adaptable over time.

DonorSearch website before we reworked it off page builder

DonorSearch website home page after the redesign

The DonorSearch website before (left) and after (right) moving off of Visual Composer.

Final Thoughts

While page builders offer an easy, cost-effective solution for simple websites, they have limitations regarding scalability, customization, and performance.

For organizations that need a more flexible, sustainable solution, moving away from page builders to custom-built sites using WordPress’s core features can make a significant difference. Whether you want to improve performance, accessibility, or content management, working with a development team to find the right solution is key.If you have any questions or issues with page builders on your WordPress site, we’re here to help. We’ve worked with numerous clients to solve page builder issues, and our team is ready to help you get the most out of your website — whether that means refining your current setup or transitioning to a custom-built solution.

Choosing a Content Management System: Proprietary vs. Open Source

Grant Proulx Web Copywriter

Let’s say your organization needs a new website. You meet with your team to discuss the best way forward. Some are touting the benefits of an open-source content management system (CMS) like Drupal or WordPress. Meanwhile, others argue that a proprietary system is the right way to go. But you’re the one who has to make the final call. So, which one will it be? In this post, we’ll look at open source vs. proprietary CMS and what each one has to offer.

If you know anything about us, you already know that we strongly prefer open source for a long list of reasons. We’ll get into those reasons below, but we’ll also give proprietary systems a fair shake — promise. Hopefully, the more you know about each option, it will be clear why we’ve built our organization around open source right from day one.

What is a proprietary CMS?

A proprietary CMS is a software platform owned and controlled by a company. Its users need to purchase licenses or subscriptions for access and updates. It typically offers limited customization compared to open-source CMS, with restricted access to the source code.

Organizations that choose the proprietary route usually cite a few main reasons:

Dedicated Support: Proprietary CMS platforms typically have dedicated customer support, offering immediate help with technical issues, bugs, and updates.
(Perceived) Security: With a closed-source environment, clients sometimes have the perception that proprietary CMS platforms have fewer vulnerabilities, since the code is not accessible to the public. The vendor manages security updates and patches. (Below, I’ll get into why this is more about perception than reality.)
Tailored Solutions: Proprietary CMS vendors may offer customized solutions, features, or integrations to meet specific business needs within a particular industry.
Legacy: In many cases, the client is already deeply invested in other proprietary platforms/software from a provider (their suite of office applications for example), so they’ll also use their CMS for the sake of convenience and continuity. There’s a pretty large company whose name starts with ‘M’ that relies heavily on this in their sales pitch.

These benefits, however, often come with trade-offs, such as higher costs and limited flexibility compared to open-source CMS options.

So, what about open source?

Open-source CMS platforms like WordPress, Joomla, and Drupal account for a majority of websites on the internet. WordPress alone powers approximately 62.7% of all sites. They’re also usually more cost-effective to maintain in the long run compared to proprietary CMS platforms for a number of reasons:

For Starters, They’re Free: Open-source platforms like WordPress and Drupal are free to use, eliminating the need for expensive licensing fees associated with proprietary software.
No Vendor Lock-In: With a proprietary CMS, the vendor retains ownership of the code, limiting your control and flexibility. With an open-source CMS, clients own and control the code, meaning full customization and portability is yours. Using open-source software also means you’re not dependent on a single company for updates, support, or hosting.
Flexibility and Customization: Drupal and WordPress offer extensive customization options with thousands of themes, plugins, and modules; users can tailor their websites to meet their needs without being locked into vendor restrictions.
Community Support: Open-source platforms have large, active communities of developers and users who contribute to forums, create plugins/modules, and more. This collective knowledge base can provide faster solutions and innovations.
Continuous Improvement: Open-source platforms are regularly updated with security patches, new features, and enhancements contributed by the community, making them more dynamic than proprietary software, which might have slower release cycles.
Ownership and Control Is All Yours: With open-source software, you have full ownership and control over your website, including the ability to host it anywhere and modify the underlying code. Proprietary systems may impose hosting restrictions and limit access to the source code.
Security and Transparency: Open-source platforms are generally considered to be more secure because the code is publicly available for scrutiny, allowing security experts to identify and patch vulnerabilities quickly. Proprietary systems may be more opaque, making it harder to spot and fix security issues. So while it’s true that many more people have access to open-source code, this results in greater platform security — despite what many proprietary system providers (and their sales teams) would like you to believe.
Scalability: Open-source platforms like Drupal are highly scalable, making them suitable for both small websites and large enterprise-level applications, whereas proprietary solutions may have limitations or require expensive upgrades to scale effectively.
Integration Capabilities: Drupal and WordPress are known for their ability to integrate with a wide range of third-party tools, APIs, and systems, providing more flexibility in building feature-rich websites — while proprietary platforms may restrict integrations or charge extra for them.
Innovation: Open-source platforms often lead in innovation, as developers from all over the world can contribute new ideas and functionalities, fostering a continuous flow of creativity and technical advancement.

It’s your call.

So, returning to our opening paragraph scenario, it’s your call; you have proponents in your organization on each side of the coin. Which do you choose? Do you listen to those team members clamoring for a proprietary CMS and its benefits? Or do you choose the flexibility and efficiency of an open-source platform?

Not that we would openly encourage you to choose one over the other. Good heavens, no! However, if you should decide to go with an open-source CMS — specifically Drupal or WordPress — we have a little motto here at Kanopi:

Never build alone.

Since 2010, we’ve been building websites that meet our clients’ unique needs, whether designing and developing from the ground up or enhancing existing sites with upgrades and CMS migrations. Our approach combines UX research, discovery, and visual design to create a user-friendly digital experience, followed by expert development to bring your vision to life. Even after launch, we provide ongoing support to ensure your site continues to perform at its best. With us as your partner, even the staunchest proprietary fans will be tipping their hats to you.

Have a look at some of our favorite Drupal and WordPress projects.

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9 Best Healthcare Website Agencies to Partner With

1. Kanopi Studios

The Power of Patient-First Design

Your Health Journey,Simplified

2. Design de Plume

3. Modea

4. Hedy & Hopp

5. Intrepy Healthcare Marketing

6. Windmill Strategy

7. Practice Builders

8. Supreme Optimization

9. RainCastle Communications

Top Healthcare Web Design Companies: FAQs

How does healthcare web design differ from standard web design?

Why is industry-specific experience so important?

What is the average timeline for a healthcare website build?

What are the non-negotiable compliance standards?

How do agencies protect sensitive patient information (PHI)?

What features do patients value most on a healthcare site?

Why is mobile-first design critical in healthcare?

How is accessibility handled for diverse patient needs?

How much does a professional healthcare website cost?

How can we measure the ROI of a new website?

How to Choose the Right Service Provider for Your Needs

Wrapping Up

What is staff augmentation for web teams?

4 key benefits of the staff augmentation model

How Kanopi Studios integrates with in-house teams

Examples of staff augmentation for website support

The Frick Collection

Flagler College

International OCD Foundation (IOCDF)

Is staff augmentation your best move?

Is Staff Augmentation Right for Your Team?

Ready to bridge the gap?

Next steps

Support is not the same thing as maintenance.

User Experience & Accessibility

SEO & Content

SEM & Paid Marketing

Conversion & Engagement

Brand & Positioning

Scalability & Infrastructure

Automation & Workflow

Performance & Security

Conclusion (in convenient listicle form)

When a refresh makes sense

When it’s time for a full rebuild

Which one is right for you?

Support Is More Than Just Bug Fixes and Security Updates

Consider The “Afters.” Where Will Your Website Be in 12 to 24 Months?

The Cost Benefits of Long-Term Support

Your Website Deserves A Long-Term Strategy

How can staff augmentation help your website?

How we partner with organizations

Ready to enhance your team?

Your hospital web development is vital to modern patient care in the digital age.

Why Medical Website Development Matters

Features to Include in Your Hospital Website

Top Hospital Web Development Examples and Best Practices

1. Simple navigation: Global Brain Health Institute

2. Clear CTAs: Mayo Clinic

3. Patient-focused design: UCSF Department of Surgery

4. Consistent, bold branding: Cleveland Clinic

5. Accessibility: Mount Sinai

6. Inclusivity: Northwestern Medicine

7. Mobile-friendliness: Johns Hopkins Medicine

8. Accurate, updated information: Yale New Haven Hospital

9. Streamlined user experience: Colorado Health Foundation

Tips for Hospital Website Compliance

How to Maintain Your Hospital Website

Adopt a continuous improvement approach

Web Design Process Comparison

Traditional Waterfall Process

Your Health Journey,
Simplified