Strategies for Resolving the Complex UX Problems Faced by Multi-Location Health Organizations

Your health organization’s website has to serve an incredibly complex audience ecosystem. New patients arrive looking to explore how your approach to care will serve their needs than returning patients. Caregivers search for information with a different perspective than someone looking to make an appointment.

This complexity creates competing priorities that many health organizations struggle to balance in an effective website user experience (UX). You also need centralized branding that maintains a consistent look and feel, but you also need location-specific content to support each practice’s services, specialties, and capabilities. Plus, you have to comply with HIPAA regulations and accessibility standards, which further complicate an already challenging puzzle.

The solution to a stronger UX doesn’t necessarily require another website redesign. Through comprehensive testing and location-specific optimization, you can take a strategic, incremental approach to UX improvement. With the right data behind your decision-making, you can create a UX that serves every audience while providing a stable foundation for growth.

UX is about more than making your website beautiful

A successful UX is not simply about making your website look pretty. It’s a matter of reducing friction points for users and making it easy for them to find what they need.

Your marketing team might be focused on growth and patient acquisition, but if you’re stuck with a clunky website and disconnected tools across locations, you’re creating barriers between patients and the care they desperately need. A poor UX constitutes much more than a conversion problem. It becomes a patient care issue.

Every decision you make to improve the user experience of your website should be informed by data. To create a website that’s set up for long-term success, you need to conduct usability tests that reveal how users interact with your website under actual conditions.

Why A/B testing isn’t enough to improve your website’s UX 

Many health organizations limit website testing to basic A/B testing—maybe swapping out a call-to-action button color or testing different headlines. But creating an effective user experience requires a more comprehensive approach because the stakes are higher. When UX failures prevent users from getting the care they need, you’re potentially impacting patient health outcomes. 

When you partner with GLIDE, we use comprehensive testing to verify UX refinements will produce results for both public and private health organizations. We used predictive heatmaps in our work with Medicaid to test above-the-fold design variations and assess their impact. We also conducted stakeholder interviews with the target 60-and-over demographic, and created full UI prototypes to test and refine functionality before development. 

Our goal wasn’t just to ensure UX refinements would improve conversions. It was to ensure Medicaid users were guided to the information they needed as seamlessly as possible.

Essential testing methods for health organization websites

To improve your UX, you need to understand where patients get confused, where they abandon their search, and what they need to make confident decisions. Your testing strategy should combine quick-win automated testing techniques with deeper research methods that reveal behavior patterns in actual users. 

Hotjar and Microsoft Clarity provide real-time user session recordings and heat map analysis that help you identify friction points without requiring extensive setup or participant recruitment. For location-specific performance insights, dynamic phone number tracking through tools like CallRail show you which locations generate the most qualified calls and what sources drive high-value patient contacts.

Tree testing proves especially valuable for navigation optimization. This method strips your website down to a simple bulleted list of page titles and presents users with tasks to complete, like “find a doctor in your neighborhood” or “schedule an appointment.” You can identify navigation problems without the distraction of visual design elements, making it easier to spot patterns in user behavior.

The choice between user interviews and surveys often comes down to budget. While interviews provide richer insights into patient decision-making processes, surveys let you reach 50 users for the same cost as interviewing two people. But the results are less specific.

Location-specific optimization that scales

Each location page on your website must satisfy both user needs and SEO requirements, but not all pages serve the same purpose. Your main site location pages primarily help existing patients find contact information and basic details about their providers. Campaign landing pages, however, focus on converting new patients. These should include limited navigation, location-specific forms, and all the information someone needs to make an appointment without clicking away.

When you consider the different paths patients take, user flow optimization becomes critical. Emergency situations require immediate access to urgent care information, while routine appointment booking allows for more detailed exploration of services and providers. Your navigation structure should allow for both scenarios without creating confusion.

Content strategy for multi-location success means distinguishing between universal brand messaging and location-specific information. Service differentiation becomes especially important to highlight each location’s unique capabilities while maintaining brand consistency.

The value in creating a more effective CMS experience 

Without proper UX for your content management system, your websites will get messy fast. Your teams may be juggling hundreds of location pages with varying quality and accuracy, while trying to integrate systems across different sites. Too often, the result is disconnected tools that frustrate your internal teams.

CMS usability directly impacts your ability to maintain accurate, consistent information across all locations. Your staff needs to update location-specific information without accidentally breaking brand guidelines or compliance requirements. Role-based access systems allow local updates while maintaining centralized control over critical elements.

When websites become difficult to manage, their accuracy suffers. Outdated office hours, incorrect provider information, or broken booking links frustrate patients and lead to missed opportunities for care. Your quality control systems should include automated checks for consistency and compliance across all locations to prevent these problems before they impact patient experience.

How Continuous Improvement enhances your website’s UX 

generating actionable insights. Patient behavior data is a valuable way to identify optimization opportunities, but all testing methods must comply with HIPAA and maintain the trust patients place in your organization.

Key elements that deserve focused testing include trust signal placement—medical credentials, certifications, and patient testimonials that build confidence in your care quality. Appointment booking flows should minimize friction without sacrificing necessary information collection. Emergency information architecture needs testing to ensure urgent care details remain immediately accessible regardless of how patients arrive at your website.

Implementation strategy becomes crucial when rolling out improvements across multiple locations. As part of our Continuous Improvement service, you gain systematic, ongoing UX enhancements that maintain consistency while allowing for location-specific optimizations based on patient populations and services.

Successful UX holds the key to improved results

Your website serves as the first point of contact for patients, making its user experience much more than a marketing consideration. Superior UX helps to differentiate your health organization by removing barriers between patients and the services they need.

The investment in comprehensive UX improvement delivers returns that extend beyond traditional metrics. When patients can easily find the right location, understand your services, and book appointments, you’re not just improving conversion rates. You’re facilitating better health outcomes for your community.

Your patients deserve digital experiences that support their health journey. Ready to get started? Let’s talk about what’s next.