Unifying Four Hospital Websites Ahead of One Brand: A Digital Strategy for Endeavor Health
Four legacy hospital websites gave patients four different answers to the same simple questions: How do I find a doctor? How do I book an appointment? With a unified brand on the horizon, the system needed a strategic foundation its own team could act on — not a redesign quote.
The work
The Challenge: Four Hospital Websites, Four Answers to Every Question
NorthShore University HealthSystem — the Chicago-area system now known as Endeavor Health — was growing through merger, and its digital presence showed it. Four legacy hospital websites served the combined system: NorthShore University HealthSystem, Edward-Elmhurst Health, Swedish Hospital and Northwest Community Healthcare, each with its own navigation, its own language and its own design conventions. For a patient, that meant four different answers to the same simple questions: How do I find a doctor? How do I book an appointment? Where do I go for care?
Underneath the inconsistency sat harder problems. Patients struggled to find doctors and book appointments. Information was scattered across four properties, so the system’s services never read as a whole. And research from a previous vendor lacked the depth to guide next steps. With a unified brand on the horizon, the team needed more than a redesign quote: a strategic foundation its own people could implement.
The Strategy: Evidence First, Then an Architecture Patients Can Navigate
A roadmap built for the internal team to act on, and design and code they could put to work immediately.
- Discovery across every source of truth. Stakeholder interviews, user analytics and surveys, competitor benchmarking inside and beyond healthcare, and a content and SEO audit.
- The Find a Doctor evidence. Heatmap, scroll and on-site search analysis read thousands of real patient queries to learn how people actually search for care.
- An architecture in patient language, tested before it shipped. Navigation audited across all four sites, consolidated into the words patients use rather than the words org charts produce, and validated with tree testing among more than 25 participants. Final navigation designs for all four sites, and a global footer joining the properties into one family.
- Deliverables built for implementation. Wireframes and prototypes for the homepage, Find a Doctor, locations and the Healthy You content hub; design system recommendations; WCAG 2.2 AA and Section 508 conformance throughout, with code examples on proven accessible frameworks.
The Outcomes: A Foundation That Outlasted the Merger and the Rebrand
The engagement gave the internal team what it asked for: a clear, research-backed framework for improvement, and the evidence to prioritize what matters most to patients. The validated architecture made the four properties navigable in one consistent patient language, and the content and SEO recommendations laid groundwork for stronger organic visibility.
The measure of a strategy is what happens to it after the handoff. This one kept its value whether the team pursued a full redesign or evolved the platforms it had — and it saw the system through its merger and its rebrand as Endeavor Health.
The detail
Why it mattered
- Four answers to the same simple question. NorthShore University HealthSystem, Edward-Elmhurst Health, Swedish Hospital and Northwest Community Healthcare each ran its own website, with its own navigation, language and design conventions. A patient asking how to find a doctor, book an appointment or choose where to go for care got a different answer depending on which front door they happened to enter.
- The experience did not match the mission. The organization is patient-first; the fragmented online experience was anything but. Information was scattered across four properties, so understanding the system’s services as a whole was the patient’s job rather than the website’s.
- Prior research had not gone deep enough. Work from a previous vendor lacked the depth to guide next steps, and success metrics were undefined. The team did not need another opinion; it needed evidence.
- The rebrand set the clock. With a unified brand on the horizon, the work had to create consistency across the legacy sites now, prepare the system for the new name, and produce recommendations the internal team could implement without waiting on a full rebuild.
How it was built
- Discovery that validated rather than assumed. Stakeholder interviews aligned business goals with patient needs across the merging organizations. User analytics and surveys assessed site performance and surfaced behavior patterns, and competitor benchmarking looked at the strongest digital experiences inside and beyond healthcare.
- Thousands of patient queries, read closely. Heatmap, scroll and on-site search analysis of the Find a Doctor experience showed how people actually search for care — the evidence under the architecture and the wireframes that followed.
- An architecture tested before it shipped. The first and second levels of navigation across all four sites were audited, a consolidated structure was proposed in plain patient language, and tree testing with more than 25 participants validated and refined it. Final navigation designs shipped for all four sites, with a global footer connecting the properties into one recognizable family.
- Design assets built for implementation. Wireframes and prototypes for the homepage, Find a Doctor, locations and the Healthy You content hub; design system recommendations for a flexible, consistent UI; and accessibility conformant to WCAG 2.2 AA and Section 508 throughout, with code examples on proven accessible frameworks so the development team could build with confidence.
What it left behind
- Decisions made on evidence. The research and strategy gave the internal team a clear framework for improvement and the evidence to prioritize what matters most to patients.
- A foundation that outlasted the transition. Whether the team pursued a full redesign or evolved its existing platforms, the strategy kept its value — through the merger, and through the rebrand that made the system Endeavor Health.
Healthcare digital strategy questions
How do you unify hospital websites after a merger?
Start with the architecture, not the visuals. For the system now known as Endeavor Health, the first and second levels of navigation across all four legacy sites were audited, a consolidated structure was proposed in plain, consistent patient language, and the new architecture was validated with tree testing among more than 25 participants before final navigation designs shipped for all four sites, joined by a global footer that presents the properties as one family.
What does a healthcare digital strategy engagement include?
Research a team can act on, and deliverables built for implementation. Endeavor Health’s engagement with Pare & Co ran stakeholder interviews, user analytics and surveys, competitor benchmarking and a content and SEO audit, then delivered validated navigation designs, wireframes and prototypes for the highest-stakes pages, design system recommendations and accessible code examples — a roadmap the internal team could execute without waiting on a full rebuild.
How should a hospital’s Find a Doctor experience be designed?
From how patients actually search. Heatmap, scroll and on-site search analysis of the Find a Doctor experience — thousands of real patient queries — showed how people look for care, and the resulting wireframes put doctor search, appointment booking and locations on deliberately simple, patient-focused paths.
Does a digital strategy stay useful through a merger and rebrand?
It can, and this one did. For the NorthShore University HealthSystem engagement by Pare & Co: a research-backed framework the internal team used to make design and development decisions, a validated information architecture patients can navigate, content and SEO groundwork for stronger visibility, and a foundation that kept its value through the system’s merger and its rebrand as Endeavor Health.
Client leadership
Matthew O’Bryant
Matthew O’Bryant has led digital strategy for health systems, where four sites becoming one is a governance question before it is a design one.