Novant Health – Spanish Language Website

Winston-Salem, NC
October 2017

Overview
Novant Health’s Latino/Hispanic Business Resource Group led the transcreation/adaptation of Novant Health’s current NovantHealth.org website into Spanish (es.novanthealth.org). The website was transcreated/adapted into Spanish to improve the connection between the organization and the Spanish-speaking communities across its footprint. The organization supported utilizing the Business Resource Group to create the website instead of utilizing Google translator because of Novant Health’s commitment to the Latino community and their expertise. Additionally, the Novant Health Interpreter Services Team transcreated MyChart (Novant Health’s online patient portal) into Spanish, which allows Spanish-speaking patients to have quick, convenient access to their electronic health record information.

On Dec. 30, 2016, the site went live. It features tools to connect the Spanish-speaking community with Novant Health, including access to the electronic medical record, MyChart in Spanish, a connection to Novant Health job opportunities by clicking “empleos,” a schedule of community events and informative health-and-wellness information.

Impact
From Jan. 1 through Aug. 31, 2017, the Novant Health Spanish language website received 84.6 percent new users and 15.4 percent returning visitors to the website. During that time period, there were 10,236 page views, and visitors spent on average more than 1½ minutes on the site.

Lessons Learned
Conduct focus groups to understand the needs of your consumers. The project team (Business Resource Group, IT, Marketing and others) conducted focus groups with members of the Latino community during the planning phase of the project. The team followed the recommendations of the focus group members as to what content needed to be included in the website en Español. According to Novant Health’s web experts, the time a person spends on the site exceeds the average of other similar sites. The consumers have a strong interest in the content of the site because the organization created a site that meets their needs.

The Latino/Hispanic Business Resource Group transcreated (meaning that the website was created based on the needs of the Hispanic culture) from the main site in English. The new site is simpler to navigate, has images, videos of physicians who speak Spanish, etc. Thus far, Novant Health has only received positive feedback with the transcreation (translations). It was advantageous to the successful launch of the website that community members had an opportunity to review the site prior to launching.

In addition, partner with IT and marketing. The Business Resource Group and the IT team worked side-by-side, and they had a strong partnership with marketing. Marketing efforts resulted in approximately 5 percent of Novant Health’s team members visiting the site during the initial campaign, which is slightly higher than the number of team members that are likely fluent in Spanish. The number of internal visitors peaked during the initial campaign pushed by internal communications, which shows that the campaign was very successful. However, the number of external users has remained flat, which indicates a need for continual marketing.

Future Goals

• Work with marketing to deepen the connections with the Latino community and increase the number of external users.
• Continue to educate team members in specific areas – departments, physician practices, etc., that have a higher volume of Spanish-speaking patients (for example, OB-GYN and pediatric practices, and emergency departments) about the website.
• Explore social media as a useful tool to increase external users.
• Establish a process for maintenance with infrastructure and support on an ongoing basis that will allow for appropriate collaboration, evaluation and review of website data. Propose and make changes to the website.
• Identify other areas of NovantHealth.org that should be transcreated into Spanish, such as recruitment and job opportunities.

Contact: Caryn Klebba
Director, Public Relations
Telephone: 844-536-3288
Email: publicrelations@novanthealth.org