Updated physician directory empowers patient and consumer healthcare choices
Cleveland Clinic announces the relaunch of its website, focused on providing patients and consumers with streamlined access to information on diseases, conditions and treatments. The site, www.clevelandclinic.org, features a newly expanded physician’s directory enabling visitors to learn more about Cleveland Clinic’s award-winning medical staff and make an appointment.
“The new website effectively demonstrates our commitment to provide the content, tools and resources consumers need to make informed choices about their care,” said Paul Matsen, Chief Marketing, Communications & Planning Officer. “Whether our website visitors want to learn about a disease or condition, find a doctor, or make an appointment, the new ClevelandClinic.org makes it easy.”
The new site has been completely reorganized to focus on diseases and conditions. Terms and synonyms from the National Library of Medicine’s Unified Medical Language System (UMLS) were used to support a proprietary taxonomy, a system of classification. This provides ClevelandClinic.org visitors with the power to search for medical conditions and services using words they know and understand.
In addition, the expanded physician’s directory provides comprehensive profile information about 1,800 doctors, including bios, languages spoken, awards/honors, diseases/conditions treated and more. Patients can select the best practitioner to meet their individual needs.
“Our updated directory is an exciting opportunity for our medical staff to educate patients and consumers worldwide about the diseases and conditions they treat, awards and honors they’ve received, and clinical trials they are conducting,” said C. Martin Harris, M.D., M.B.A., Chief Information Officer.
Other features of the new site include:
- A – Z lists enable patients and visitors to easily locate an institute, department, disease, treatment, service or more than 1,400 health information topics.
- Find a Doctor and Our Doctors options enable patients to locate a physician within a specific Cleveland Clinic institute or department.
- Related links within content pages provide one-click access to institutes and departments, physicians and specialists, publications and articles.
- Google maps functionality enables patients to input their address and receive local driving directions to Cleveland Clinic hospitals and family health centers.
Cleveland Clinic’s website redesign began in 2006 and involved the migration of more than 12,000 Internet pages from more than 90 institutes and departments at the hospital. As part of the project, more than 600 patients nationwide, as well as, internal staff members, were consulted to ensure that the design, navigation and site architecture were user friendly and accessible to all audiences.
Access to popular tools and services such as MyChart, online chats, podcasts and videos are still available to site visitors on the new site. Future phases will integrate Cleveland Clinic’s regional hospitals and research institutes into the website.
About Cleveland Clinic
Cleveland Clinic, located in Cleveland, Ohio, is a not-for-profit multi-specialty academic medical center that integrates clinical and hospital care with research and education. Cleveland Clinic was founded in 1921 by four renowned physicians with a vision of providing outstanding patient care based upon the principles of cooperation, compassion and innovation. U.S.News & World Report consistently names Cleveland Clinic as one of the nation’s best hospitals in its annual “America’s Best Hospitals” survey.
Approximately 1,800 full-time salaried physicians and researchers at Cleveland Clinic and Cleveland Clinic Florida represent more than 100 medical specialties and subspecialties. In 2007, there were 3.5 million outpatient visits to Cleveland Clinic and 50,455 hospital admissions. Patients came for treatment from every state and from more than 80 countries. Cleveland Clinic’s website address is www.clevelandclinic.org.
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Eryn Lancaster, 216.445.1991
