Sheffield Aches And Pains: a case study
November 2011 by Kim d'ArcyThe aim of this website development project was to create a family of online resources to provide a one-stop online advice and information stop for people presenting to their GP with minor musculoskeletal problems.
All 400 GPs in Sheffield are using the websites as part of an agreed treatment programme for this growing category of patients to see if it can help empower people to manage their own pain and so reduce the number of unnecessary surgery visits and hospital referrals.
We worked with website designers to produce the following unique online solution. After diagnosis, patients are directed to the appropriate website within the ‘aches and pains’ website family. These are:
- Sheffieldachesandpains.com central pain portal which directs people to the appropriate website for their pain/problem; provide general healthy living and pain relief advice; an employer’s section providing advice on maintaining staff at work, supporting absent staff and helping workers return.
- Sheffieldbackpain (which includes neck pain)
- Sheffield Shoulder Pain
- Sheffield Hand and Elbow Pain
- Sheffield Foot and Ankle Pain
- Sheffield Knee and Hip Pain
Each site has a different coloured logo and branding but follow the same format which is:
- A campaign style front with a patient’s section and healthcare professionals side
- The patient side is divided into: What is the problem? (symptoms, why have I got it), How can I manage it? (with pdf advice leaflets, video exercise demos) and How I can prevent it happening again? (again with pdf advice leaflets and video content)
- The healthcare professionals side provides GPs with condition specific examination techniques, patient information and advice leaflets, referrals forms, case histories and clinical pathways.
Our health team worked in close partnership with local health care professionals throughout to deliver and populate the sites with appropriate written and video content.
We presented Sheffieldachesandpains.com to all 400 Sheffield GPs as part of two professional learning workshops focusing on MSK and the new clinical pathways. We also produced posters for GP surgeries and website address cards for doctors to hand out to their patients.
Outcome to date:
We know through Google Analytics that in its first two months, the site was visited over 9,100 times, which is hugely encouraging.
Of those, 65.8 per cent were new visitors and people spent an average of 3 mins 18 secs on the sites which had 44,137 separate page views. The bounce rate was just 37 per cent – which is very low, indicating that people are getting what they are looking for from sheffieldachesandpains.com.
Sheffield GP Dr Ollie Hart, who spearheaded the www.sheffieldachesandpains.com project said:
“HR Media have been excellent in helping us develop our new Aches and Pains website. They have worked long hours to reach tight deadlines. They have co-ordinated, condensed and organised huge amounts of information.
“They have produced a website that is clear, clean and consistently good. They also provided excellent presentations and support for our launch event. They continue to provide swift and accurate support for our post launch updates. I think they represent excellent value for money.
“I would have no hesitation in recommending them to anyone wanting to develop a similar online resource.”
