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The Client

The Healthcare Infection Society (HIS) is a charity and a membership organisation whose objectives are to advance knowledge, foster scientific interest and disseminate information about the prevention and control of healthcare-associated infections (HCAIs).

With over 1,000 members specialising in the prevention and control of HCAIs, HIS drawn largely from the medical profession for its membership network, which at the moment consists predominantly of consultant microbiologists and doctors enrolled on an infection specialty training programme, as well as a number of nurses, clinical scientists, research scientists and others with a professional interest in infection prevention and control.

As part of the membership benefits, HIS offers access to the monthly Journal of Hospital Infection, which features original articles relating to all aspects of infection prevention and control in healthcare settings.

What’s more, HIS holds a series of events (e.g. courses, conferences, training days) designed to provide healthcare professionals with support and updates on the latest developments in the field, as well as foster collaboration between members.

In line with their continuous effort to improve and safeguard public health, HIS also offers a number of grant funding opportunities available to HIS members for their scientific and medical research.

The Brief

The new Healthcare Infection Society website was conceived as a pivotal part of driving the ambitious new membership, communications, events and education strategies of the organisation. The main aim of the project was to create a site which provides centralised management of a number of aspects, such as events, email marketing, grants and memberships, from a single, seamlessly integrated CMS platform.

As part of the project, HIS had a number of requirements for the new CMS, including a premium design service, the inclusion of a personalised members’ area and a range of media integration options. What’s more, the new website needed to be mobile optimised and allow the HIS team to easily manage all content. The brief also included a requirement for analytics and reporting functionalities which can measure important visitor statistics.

The key business objectives of the new website fell into the following four categories:

  • Membership

HIS needed a membership functionality which allowed new members to join online by filling out an application form featuring an easy to search drop down list of countries. According to the membership subscription option and the country the user selects, the relevant fees will be automatically generated.

The new membership system would also be able to track duplicate members, send out automatic member renewal emails and allow existing members to review all information relevant to their membership as well as easily renew online.

An email marketing functionality would help HIS engage with their members throughout their journey – from automated welcome emails to renewal reminders and more, automated e-marketing sends out tailored communications and updates preferences in real time, so you never miss an unsubscribe.

  • Grant Management

In the grant management section of the new site all users (both members and non-members) need to be able to apply for a variety of grants using an online application form. The system would then be able to store all their grant application data, including PDF and Word documents. An automated workflow would streamline the grant submission, review and approval process with the help of Sage Live.

  • Events

The new website needed to also feature an Events section, where both members and non-members can register for events online, at rates automatically generated according to their membership status. HIS required an event registration system which pushes the appropriate fees to delegates and auto-populates the registration form with the details of logged in members. Following the event, the new system would also automatically send out feedback surveys tailored to the individual occasion.

  • Reporting

The CMS behind the new Healthcare Infection Society website also needed to support a series of reporting functions such as sorting membership data by all the available CRM fields, allowing users to create customisable reports, including financial reports, and extract them in a variety of formats. The new site would also give the HIS team access to live reports, which can be pre-defined and automated, and mobile optimised dashboards displaying real-time data.

The Solution

Collaborating with CRM provider Oomi, we held a series of Discovery workshops with the HIS team to gather information about the ways internal and external stakeholders interact with the current site.

Informed by the outcomes of these workshops, we then went through a seven-week design phase during which we perfected the home page and the sub-pages. Once the designs were complete, we kicked off a twelve-week development stage which culminated in running Umbraco training sessions with the HIS team, during which they can learn how to use the new site.

Once the Healthcare Infection Society had uploaded all their content to the website and completed user acceptance testing (UAT) on both our and Oomi’s deliverables, the website went live in October 2018.

We held weekly phone calls with the HIS team over the course of the entire project, and well after launch to ensure that all the final touches are completed in line with Oomi’s deliverables.

"Thanks for all your help so far – it’s been a really great experience working with you all at Spindogs. The website looks fabulous!"

— Helen Davies Membership, Education and Events Manager at Healthcare Infection Society

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