Stop Redesigning, Start Evolving: How Product Thinking Transforms Healthcare Websites

You don’t need another redesign.
What you need is a roadmap.

That was the core message in my recent conversation with Chris Boyer, host of the Touch Point Podcast and one of the most trusted voices in digital health strategy. Chris and I explored how product thinking can free healthcare marketers from the endless redesign loop and help them do more with the site they already have.

For most healthcare teams, the website still feels like a capital project: big lift, big expectations, then… not much. But your patients, your stakeholders, your team; they’re not waiting around for a relaunch.

The Redesign Trap

Why your website is already outdated by the time it launches

Every time you start over from scratch, you lose momentum. You’re not just rebuilding the site: you’re redoing the strategy, stakeholder alignment, and operations that supported it. And usually, you're working from assumptions that were set 12 to 18 months earlier.

Chris Boyer called it a “waterfall mindset”. Everything scoped, approved, launched… and outdated by the time it’s live.

Meanwhile, your users don’t care that the homepage was signed off on nine months ago. They just want to find a doctor today.

Websites aren’t campaigns. They’re products. And products evolve.

Your Website Is Already a Product

You just haven’t been treating it like one

Your website caters to multiple audiences, integrates with core systems, and supports measurable goals. That’s a product.

The problem? It’s still funded and managed like a one-off project. Big CapEx redesigns followed by years of inertia.
Product thinking flips that. It’s an OpEx mindset: small, purposeful improvements delivered steadily. You react to real feedback. 

You adapt to shifting priorities. You prove value without waiting three years. 

A good example is creating a “MVP” (Minimum Viable Product) version of the website for launch. This becomes the first step of amulti-year roadmap that can evolve every year. 

It’s not about doing more. It’s about building smarter, faster, and with less friction.

Three Signs You’re Ready to Shift

How to know if your team can evolve (not just maintain)

You don’t need to reorganize your entire department to start thinking this way. But you do need a few fundamentals:

1. You have a strategic vision
   Even a rough roadmap shows that you’re thinking beyond reactive requests.
2. You’ve secured budget beyond break/fix
   A $50K maintenance budget might keep the lights on, but it won’t move the needle. Product thinking needs a separate line for evolution. $30K–$50K a year can be enough to start.
3. You’re involving the right partners early
   Your agency, your stakeholders, your leadership. When they’re aligned on direction, you don’t have to resell every decision.

From Wish List to Roadmap

How one client turned a maintenance budget into measurable progress

One of the biggest shifts in product thinking is moving from a backlog of ideas to a sequenced, strategic roadmap.

We worked with a California university whose newly redesigned site had stalled out. No strategic roadmap. No improvements. Just tweaks.

When we stepped in, our first step was to get feedback from users. We quickly identified that their main challenge was content discoverability. That became the strategic driver that helped us develop a roadmap prioritizing the following high-impact improvements:

• A mega menu to improve navigation
• A unified search experience (using SearchStax) across all types of content
• An AI-powered chatbot to help guide users and reduce call volume

All of this was delivered within less than a ~$200K/year engagement, and without needing a new business case for each initiative. By planning across quarters, we helped them align their digital initiatives with their budget while maintaining stakeholder buy-in.

You don’t need to do everything. Just the right things, in the right order.

“You're not just putting a facelift on your site. You're investing in how your platform evolves with your business needs.”
- Chris Boyer

That’s the difference between a maintenance budget and an evolution budget.

Getting Started with Product Thinking

How to build momentum in three steps

You don’t need to overhaul your team or rebuild your strategy to get started. In fact, the most effective way to adopt a product mindset is to start small and prove it works.

Here’s how:

1. Pick one priority
   Choose an improvement that’s been sitting in your backlog—provider search, service-line content, booking flow. (make sure you’re ready to say “no” to work that does not align with this priority)
2. Break it into phases
   Don’t aim for perfect. Use a crawl-walk-run approach. Launch something small, test it, then expand based on feedback.
3. Track the outcome
   User feedback. Internal adoption. Search traffic. Anything that proves progress.

That’s your fuel for the next conversation with leadership.

The Roles That Make This Work

No org chart needed—just ownership

You don’t need to hire a “product owner.” But someone needs to own where the website is going.

Two roles matter most:

• The systems lead
  The person who understands the platform, the integrations, the limits
• The strategy lead
  The person who connects website initiatives to business priorities

Sometimes that’s one person. Sometimes it’s shared across marketing and IT. Sometimes you can trust an agency like Symetris to fill the gap. In either case, someone needs to protect the roadmap.

Tools and tactics are only useful if someone’s driving. Product thinking starts with ownership.

Still Planning a Redesign? Ask This First.

Before kicking off another RFP, ask:

• What are we actually trying to fix?
• Could we solve it with a targeted improvement?
• Are we redesigning out of necessity… or habit?

(Still unsure? Check out: Do You Really Need a Redesign?)
 

There are good reasons to replatform. But there are better reasons to pause and think strategically.

Start with one win. Build the case. Treat your website like the product it already is.

Need help building a roadmap? Get in touch.