Word Press In The Health Sector

WordPress in the Health Sector

Michael Kimb Jones

July 19th 2009 - WordCamp UK

WordPress in the NHS

WordPress in large enterprise

WordPress for local government

WordPress as a CMS

About me…

Michael Kimb Jones

Web Solutions ManagerBarnsley Hospital NHS Foundation Trust

About me…

Michael Kimb Jones

Freelance WorkBase6 Design Ltd

About me…

Michael Kimb Jones

Personal Blog: mkjones.co.uk

Twitter: @mkjones

Base6: base6design.com

Contents...

1. The NHS CMS Predicament Lack of tools/strategy

Issues faced

Fixing the problem

2. Set-up at Barnsley Hospital BEFORE the re-development Internal/External web presence

Off-shoot (rebel) sites

Reasons for re-development

3. Website Re-development Project Project objectives

The road to WordPress

WordPress set-up (plugins, users, etc)

Site stats, feedback & future plans

The NHS CMS Predicament

The NHS CMS Predicament...

Lack of tools/strategy

• There is a problem with CMS’s in the NHS

• No central body has been given the responsibility of providing this service

• This causes health organisations to waste time and money on the procurement of non-standardised and untested CMS tools or developing their own systems


Lack of tools/strategy

For example...

121 Foundation Trusts

121 different systems and ideas for content management

121 web development teams and 1000s of users not communicating with each other

Leads to frustration, a lack of standards and a lot of wasted time and money


Issues faced

• Some organisations invest more money than others depending on priorities, staffing, support

• Not all organisations have a dedicated and skilled team which can support or develop a CMS solution

• Often organisations are seen as easy targets for development firms out to make a ‘quick buck’ (NHS Cash-cow syndrome)


Fixing the problem??



Its clear that the NHS possess quality CMS solutions...

DoH NHS Direct NHS Choices

All of these sites must use tried and tested systems to publish content on the web



• Why don’t these central organisations share the CMS tools they use?

• A sponsored centralised solution could easily be developed using existing tools and methods that could then be shared out to any organisation wishing to use it

• A system similar in design to the recent ‘NHS Mail’ project could be devised and made available as an option for organisations to use and participate in



• Providing the tool centrally would also alleviate the need for 3rd party hosting and support

• Such a tool could even be released as open-source software using a GPL-like licence allowing organisations to re-develop and modify to their specific needs

• Ultimately this could lead to... 100s of different sites 1000s of users Just 1 CMS

Fixing the NHS CMS Predicament

OR at least adopt a similar methodology and model

So in closing...

Use WordPress?

Set-up at Barnsley Hospital BEFORE the re-development

Set-up at Barnsley Hospital...

Old External Site Public facing ‘www’ site Hospital News/Events Patient information Board/Corporate Info Moderated content

Internal Intranet Internal ‘N3’ site Staff information (news, events) Departmental sub-sites (60 sites) Built in-house (Classic ASP) Un-moderated content

Internal site has yet to be updated...

Re-development project focused on the external website…

Old external website…

Static HTML site

Used Dreamweaver Templates

Lacking in content

Developed in 2004 as a ‘quick fix’

Vastly out of date

www.bhnft.nhs.uk

These issues led to off-shoot sites

Off-shoot (rebel) sites...Barnsley PGME

Barnsley Audiology

Barnsley Dietetic and Nutrition Barnsley Healthy Workplace

Nursing in the North

Barnsley ICT Services

North Trent Cancer Network

Barnsley Pathology Services

Staff Support Services

www.barnsleyaudiology.nhs.uk

Example off-shoot (rebel) site...

Off-shoot (rebel) sites...Barnsley PGME

Barnsley Audiology

Barnsley Dietetic and Nutrition Barnsley Healthy Workplace

Nursing in the North

Barnsley ICT Services

North Trent Cancer Network

Barnsley Pathology Services

Staff Support Services

To help maintain and streamline development of these sites

and after a lengthy search I had actually procured a pretty

decent open-source ASP.Net CMS:

Umbraco (www.umbraco.org)

Reason for choosing Umbraco

• Runs on the ASP.Net platform (requirement in an NHS environment)

• Simple to use, install, maintain

• Open-source

• FREE

• The best free ASP.Net available

Using Umbraco…

The NHS Is a very PURE Microsoft environment which makes .NET the standard for Enterprise and Web

Development

Using ASP.Net…

Getting PHP/MySQL in the organisation was one of the

greatest challenges I faced as a web developer

Using PHP/MySQL…

In the end it came down to money….

In order to build upon the Umbraco CMS I insisted that we would require the Pro (supported) AND some expert training as

I had little or no time to learn Umbraco to the required level

Moving away from Umbraco

• No robust support community

• No funding for paid support/training (Pro version)

• No knowledge on how or if it could be scaled

• Long learning curve

• We had finally allowed PHP/MySQL in the organisation

The problem with Umbraco…

A recent Twitter on how I moved away from the Umbraco CMS once we had a strategy in place which allowed for

PHP/MySQL applications to be included in our infrastructure

Losing Umbraco…

Passionate developers and a emerging community

Losing Umbraco…

Umbraco is one of the very few decent FREE ASP.Net open-source CMS’s but in my opinion it can’t compete with the WordPress experience

Losing Umbraco…

Inconsistency in front-end design and back end technology

This went on for a number of years before being addressed

Reasons for re-development

In-house CMS (Classic ASP) Static HTML Umbraco

Reasons for re-development...

1. Core external site was underdeveloped and out

of date

2. Relevant Hospital content was stretched over

multiple websites

3. The Hospital brand was not strongly reflected on

any of the existing sites

4. No clear CMS strategy – ‘anything goes’

Reasons for re-development...

Using a mixture of

Self-built CMS tools

Static HTML

Umbraco

External Companies

Content was not centralised

No standards were in place

The whole thing was a mess….

No GOOD CMS strategy

Website Re-development Project

Project objectives...

Project objectives...

Fix everything I’ve just brought up

Re-develop the external website from the ground up

Design a theme which reflected the Hospital brand

Bring all off-shoot sites under the same umbrella

Ensure the resulting system is easy to use and expandable

The road to WordPress...

Although I’d been using and advocating WordPress for a few years it hadn’t had any impact on my work at the hospital

Developing the new site...

Clearly defined navigation structure...

More useful and informative than the previous version

Corporate information...

Service information...



Stats on the new site...

Developed in

6 weeksHosting costs

£200 PA

Moved to the new domain

www.barnsleyhospital.nhs.uk


334 Pages

35 Posts

10Plugins

WPv2.8

10,000k Monthly visitors

5 Active editors


100% Positive feedback from users AND editors

WordPress Set-up…

Essential Plugins All in One SEO Pack

Contact Form 7

Fold Page List

Role Scoper

TinyMCE Advanced

WordPress Database Backup

WordPress Set-up…

Favourite PluginsFold Page List

Role Scoper


WordPress Set-up…

Fold Page List

Instantly enhances the use of pages in WordPress

Comes with a built-in breadcrumb system

Allows developers to easily query child/parent ID’s

Favourite Plugins

Using Fold Page List…

WordPress Set-up…

Role Scoper

Turns a standard WordPress installation into a multi-user

CMS without the need for WPMU

Extremely advanced user role management

Allows user role management of individual post or pages

Ability to give editors their own sub-areas to work on

Easy to use interface

Favourite Plugins

Using Role Scoper…



WordPress Set-up…


Daily, weekly or monthly database backups

Option to archive or email

No hassle, it just works

Favourite Plugins

Using WordPress Database Backup

The future…

Future Plans Give every hospital service the ability to maintain their own section

Reign in more off-shoot sites that are yet to be converted

Integrate social apps – Twitter, YouTube

Implement blogs for Chief Executive and board members

Multi-language version

Using WordPress We..

Were able to develop a large website on a short deadline

Ended up with a great CMS solution

Spend hardly any money

Are confident future CMS challenges have been met

Never looked back…

To conclude…

Technology

Word Press In The Health Sector