Sparks Health Web Site Impresses Critics

We loved the Internet babies portion of Sparks Health System’s Web site. It was the highlight of a comprehensive information portal that’s almost too big to review.

It’s an amazing marketing tool for the Fort Smith hospital, and a heck of a service for the relatives of newborns who can see their family’s latest additions from anywhere in the world.

The site, www.sparks.org, previously won the Arkansas Hospital Association’s Diamond Award in 1998. But since then it’s undergone two major redesigns and a third is underway.

The latest redesign, which Sparks’ IT staff said will include “substantial enhancements of the site’s functionality and interactivity,” is expected to be unveiled this summer.

Included will be the ability to create a personal profile that can help users identify interests and tailor the site to their unique health needs.

The site was launched in 1997. It averaged more than 490,000 hits per month during 2001, or about 5.9 million annually.

That includes hits from about 1,500 PCs inside the Sparks system, that have browsers configured to use the site as a default home page.

We found that level of disclosure in the sticky world of Web site competition to be especially refreshing. So that alone boosted the review by a half mouse.

A technician and a graphic designer on our review team both called the site’s graphics “boring.” The technician said the graphics are compressed too heavily to the point of becoming distorted in places. He had additional issues with the site’s layout, but lauded its wealth of information and physicians’ photo roster.

The designer said the women’s center section had too much emphasis on the Sparks Hospital gift shop instead of actual treatments or services. She found the library links to be “pretty good,” but was a little disappointed in the kids’ links section.

Overall the site is easy to navigate, and no one can question its comprehensiveness.

We liked the patient medical assistant section, which offers medical advice for every malady from athlete’s foot to vomiting. (There is even an allergy forecaster, and tips for making your home allergy proof).

Online employment applications, links to men’s health sites and senior services were some of the other smart features we found. We can only imagine that introducing interactive health services will make the site among the industry’s best.