What’s a website for?
The simplest questions to ask can be the hardest to answer. We struggle with analogies of what a website replaces, and there are so many right answers. Phone book. Library. Television. Store. Clubhouse. Classroom. (Doctor’s office? Pharmacy counter?) We haven’t run out of ideas yet.
So when the time came to rebuild WSHA’s Internet home, we considered all these possibilities and more. Most fundamentally, we wrestled with how we can use our website to meet the needs of our audience — both the current audience, and the audience of the future.
We’re excited to roll out the new site this month. It retains the most needed features of the old site and creates some new places for content to grow over time — for example, the video page.
One of the places we’re most excited to grow is thenew section devoted entirely to patients. It has information about hospital locations, of course, but also quality and pricing data, and information about hospital bills and financial assistance.
More and more, patients are taking control of their own health care choices. We want to help ensure the public has access to the information they need for both personal and governmental decision-making.
Some other features include:
- A new bookstore, full of materials that can be downloaded or ordered from WSHA;
- Newly designed space for member-focused content, and headline news integrated with hospital listings (e.g., Summit Pacific Medical Center and EvergreenHealth);
- A new landing page for media;
- Staff listings that describe the work people do, and connect you to their recent news (eg., Cassie Sauer).
And of course, the site also contains current information about WSHA’s policy and advocacy work, our patient safety programs, and other statewide initiatives, such as Honoring Choices Pacific Northwest and Healthier Washington.
So what is WSHA.org for? It’s for you.
Mary Kay Clunies-Ross
Vice President
Communications and Public Affairs
marykaycr@wsha.org
