The Brief
BARDOC (Bury and Rochdale Doctors on call) is a not for profit making organisation commissioned by NHS Heywood, Middleton and Rochdale and NHS Bury to provide urgent out of hours medical care. BARDOC deliver healthcare services for the benefit of local patients and the NHS and run a multidisciplinary team of over 250 Clinicians made up of Doctors, Nurses and Pharmacists. BARDOC covers 79 GP Practices which provide services for over 450,000 patients. After winning the tender for the project, Frank were commissioned to design and produce a new site that would improve communication between the organisation and the patients and professional groups that it serves.
Key aims were for the site to become the main delivery channel of information release for the organisation, to provide an area for patients and carers to directly engage with BARDOC, and to provide a flexible platform that will grow and evolve with the planned expansion of the organisation.
Behind the scenes, the site contains an advanced content management system that enables BARDOC to monitor and manage all site information, as well as providing the tools to analyse user data and most viewed content.
The Solution
It was essential that all audience groups felt compelled to use the site regularly. A colour-coded navigation structure was established to simplify user experience. A clear and concise homepage enables users from different audience groups to immediately signpost to key areas of interest within the site. A test site was developed with BARDOC to enable user acceptance testing before site launch, and to ensure ease of use across all main public and professional user profiles. An out of hours rota publishes secure information for internal staff and the Professionals Forum has enhanced communication channels for the different roles within the BARDOC team.
Version 1 of the BARDOC site has been designed to enable patients and carers to feedback information directly to the relevant internal stakeholders, enabling greater analysis of public opinion. Version releases are scheduled to take place throughout 2010 and the second stage of the digital development of the organisation, BARDOC's intranet platform, is currently in development in Autumn 2010.