Michigan Medicine’s Enterprise website launch a crucial step toward cohesion and simplicity

About a 3-minute read

 Key takeaways:

• Michigan Medicine’s years-long project to consolidate and unify its digital web presence launched last Monday with an enterprise website: michiganmedicine.org.
• The Department of Communication’s web team worked with key stakeholders to consolidate 28 of the Enterprise websites into one complete entity. The goal is to strengthen Michigan Medicine’s web presence and brand, while streamlining operational efficiency.
• Three more systemwide websites will be launched in the future – Research and Education later in 2023; and Clinical in early 2024.

An exciting digital project has come to fruition – Michigan Medicine’s revamped external web presence. The first of four website overhauls and integrations, the Enterprise website, is live.

Launched in late January, michiganmedicine.org is the central piece to a reimagined external web presence that will consolidate, simplify and strengthen Michigan Medicine’s digital presence and brand recognition.

“Our main goal has been to communicate our mission and value as one Michigan Medicine,” Rose Glenn, chief communications manager said. “The enterprise website is the front door into our academic medical center. We are determined to attract and serve our target leaders, faculty, researchers and patients, and give them the digital experience commensurate with the physical experience they have with our organization.”

Upon a thorough review of all digital properties, a process that began in 2020, it was determined a revitalized and transformational digital and website strategy was needed. The review found 320 siloed websites on multiple platforms across four main areas – enterprise, research, clinical and education. The project was tasked to the website team within the Department of Communication.

This led to users shouldering the burden of navigating a siloed web ecosystem and inconsistent brand stories. Additionally, content was scattered and unorganized, which was at odds with users’ positive perception of Michigan Medicine. Finally, the websites were not ADA compliant for individuals with disabilities and Michigan Medicine was competing with itself for search engine rankings and using valuable financial and labor resources to maintain the system.

With the guidance of user and stakeholder interviews, surveys, workshops and research, major recommendations were handed down. Today’s exciting launch of the Enterprise website represents the beginning of these key recommendations:

• A focus on the digital presence of Michigan Medicine
• To clarify and unify the brand experience
• To adopt a data-driven strategy
• To share one powerful platform
• Provide freedom within a framework

The Michigan Medicine enterprise site consolidates 28 websites into one. The primary objective of this site is to communicate the value of Michigan Medicine as the connective tissue between the individual tripartite websites: research, education and clinical.

“The new external web presence is a tremendous step forward for Michigan Medicine and our community,” said Alfreda Rooks, M.P.A., director of Community Health Services. “Making our services more accessible to everyone helps in so many ways. A simplified digital experience will help close the gap in information finding and bring folks closer to our offerings for healthy living.”

The timeline for future websites is to be determined, but tentative rollouts for the research and education sites are slated for this year, while the clinical site will follow in early 2024.

Ultimately, the operational goals of the project are to improve the quality and consistency of external digital content, while increasing efficiency by simplifying and streamlining the management of digital properties.