Pushing back effectively, and winning: problem solving with data
Data Analysis – Stakeholder Management – Prioritizing Impact
During my time as the Web Content Manager for the state’s cancer hospital, I fielded large amounts of requests for updates to the website. The website for this matrix organization included content for patient care, cancer research, and training the next generation of cancer physicians and researchers.
One of the supportive care teams at the cancer hospital, Palliative Care, asked to be included on the Patient Care landing page of the website. This page is included in the primary navigation menu and is a highly-coveted piece of content real estate amongst the patient-facing units.
Problem
The Patient Care landing page is a jumping point for the cancer hospital’s clinical care programs. To help patients find clinic information quickly and get connected to care, leadership decided to prioritize and list only clinical programs on this page and exclude anything else.
Additionally, the decision to only list clinical programs helped us manage expectations for who was and wasn’t listed; listing one program but not others would be unfair and open the floodgate for requests to be added to the page.
How could I deliver value to the Palliative Care team with their request while managing expectations and setting up precedence for future similar requests?
Solution
I empathized with the Palliative Care team and partnered with them to deliver an impactful solution that centered on user needs and user intent. This solution also fit within the directive to exclude non-clinical programs from the Patient Care page.
The Process
Understanding Goals and Desired Outcomes
Palliative Care wanted to increase their referrals and were seeking opportunities to increase visibility of their programming. Patients could ask their physician for a referral to Palliative Care services, so putting the team’s information in patient-facing web content made sense.
Additionally, the Palliative Care team wanted to communicate that their services are not just for those with terminal diagnosis; it also included symptom management and other elements of supportive care.
Not only was visibility important to the team, but adding context and educating patients was a factor in this request as well.
Using Data to Reinforce User Intent
This was an opportunity to problem solve with data and inference user needs.
I had a hunch that our users did not spend long on the Patient Care landing page and were likely keyed into clicking on their disease clinic and not an out-of-context support program.
I dug into Google Analytics to see how our users flowed into and away from this landing page. While I was certainly looking for data to validate my hypothesis, I kept my perspective open so as to not block out any potential surprising findings.
However, my findings supported my hypothesis: users did not spend long on the Patient Care page, but did spend time exploring the pages within a clinic section.
Managing Expectations and Setting Precedence
Managing this request required institutional knowledge and sensitive communication with the requestor, who was the program manager.
I was able to push back effectively (I won’t be listing you on the Patient Care landing page) and win (but I have a solution that will actually provide increased visibility over what you asked for).
Defining Solutions
The data showed that our users did not spend long on the Patient Care landing page but, rather, quickly drilled down to their disease clinic and spent time exploring that section (which contained 3-8 pages of patient-centered content).
Multidisciplinary care and collaboration are a key part of our clinical programs, and I proposed the following to the requestor to get Palliative Care information to patients, and with context:
Add Palliative Care to the Our Team page in each clinic section, which is a listing of oncologists, nurse navigators, patient coordinators, etc. Patients and caregivers use this page to find doctors and get to know the members of their care team. It consistently had high traffic and engagement rates across the clinic sections. I proposed adding a Supportive Care heading, which would include a brief description of the goals of the program, and a link to a landing page with more information.
2. Create a new Patient Support page. This new page would list all patient support programs at the hospital, including Palliative Care. This page would be included in each clinic section, and could be tailored to include specialty programming for that disease (e.g. Breast Cancer Survivorship Program). I envisioned it becoming a key resource for patients and caregivers looking for this information. Each entry would have a brief program description and link to landing page with detailed information.
Outcome
By using the data and carefully crafting persuasive yet empathetic communication, I was able to align the impact of the request with a solution that offered value to both the requestor and our users, and set up a plan for similar future requests from other support programs.
The requestor was excited at the opportunity to be listed twice in each clinic section, along with context on what their program does, and that there was a history of higher traffic to these pages.