Notes for owners · Websites and conversion
Website features every hospital should have
A hospital website serves a frightened midnight relative, a referring doctor and a corporate HR manager, and most sites serve none of them well.
The GullySales team · Updated 15 Sept 2026 · 7 min read
Rules for this trade differ by state and professional body, and they change. Check the current position with your own council or adviser before you act on anything here.
On this page
A hospital website has three very different users. A relative at midnight who needs the emergency number, the address and whether the hospital takes their insurance. A patient comparing consultants for a planned procedure, who wants credentials, OPD days and what the surgery involves. And a referring doctor or a corporate HR manager checking whether you have the department, the accreditation and the empanelment they need. Most hospital sites are built as a brochure for the management and serve none of the three. Fixing that is mostly a matter of structure, not design.
The pages that carry the most weight
Look at the analytics of almost any Indian hospital website and the same handful of pages dominate: doctor profiles, the department page for one or two specialities, the insurance and TPA list, contact and directions, and health check packages. Those five deserve most of the effort.
What usually gets the effort instead is the home page carousel, the chairman's message and a gallery of inauguration photographs. None of those appear in the top ten pages by visits.
What every hospital website must carry
- The emergency and ambulance numbers, visible on every page without scrolling, tappable on a phone.
- The full address with a landmark, a Google Maps link, and a line on parking and the nearest bus or metro stop.
- OPD timings by department and by consultant, kept current. An out-of-date OPD schedule produces a wasted trip and a complaint.
- A profile page per consultant: name, qualifications, registration council and number, years of experience, special interests, OPD days and timings, and languages spoken. Languages matter more than most hospitals expect.
- A page per department, naming the procedures performed, the equipment available, the consultants attached and what a first visit involves.
- The insurance, TPA and scheme empanelment list, dated, including any government schemes such as Ayushman Bharat or state schemes where applicable, and CGHS or ECHS if empanelled.
- Accreditation status, such as NABH or NABL for the laboratory, stated plainly with the certificate visible.
- Health check packages with what each includes, the fasting requirement, the duration and the price.
- An appointment request form that captures department, consultant preference, and whether the patient is new or returning.
- Bed category and room tariff information, or at least a range. Families ask this on the first call.
- A page on what to bring for admission and discharge, which saves the front desk dozens of calls a day.
- The grievance redressal contact and patient rights information, which is expected of a hospital and reassures families.
- Lab and radiology report access, if you have it, with a clear login.
Who each feature is actually for
| User | What they came for | Where hospitals fail them |
|---|---|---|
| Relative in an emergency | Number, address, whether the insurance is accepted | Number buried in a footer, insurance list two years old |
| Patient planning a procedure | Consultant credentials, what the surgery involves, cost range | Profiles with a photograph and a designation only |
| Referring physician | Department capability, equipment, the consultant's special interest | No department detail, so the referral goes elsewhere |
| Corporate HR manager | Health check packages, empanelment, invoicing process | No corporate page, no named contact |
| Insurance or TPA desk | Empanelment status, documentation process | Nothing, so every query becomes a phone call |
| Outstation or overseas family | Travel, accommodation, estimate, remote consultation | No international or outstation patient page |
A hypothetical hospital, and the page nobody had written
For example, imagine a ninety-bed multi-speciality hospital in north Bengaluru, with orthopaedics, general surgery, obstetrics and a dialysis unit. Its website had a home page carousel, a list of departments as names only, and a contact page. The scenario below is illustrative, not a real hospital.
The front desk log showed what patients were actually ringing to ask. Which insurance companies are accepted. Is Dr so-and-so available on Saturday. What does the master health check include and does it need fasting. How much does a normal delivery package cost and what is included. Which room categories are available.
Five pages answered all of it. The insurance list with a date stamp on it. Consultant profiles with OPD days. Health check packages with inclusions, fasting instructions and price. A maternity package page listing what the package covers and what is billed separately. A room tariff page with categories.
Calls to the front desk fell and the calls that came through were from people ready to book. Say a master health check is priced at ₹3,500. If the package page brings even twenty extra bookings a month, that is worth the afternoon it took to write. The figures are illustrative; the pattern is not. The pages that reduce phone calls are usually the same pages that produce admissions.
Details that decide whether a family trusts the site
Photographs of the actual hospital, the reception, the ward, the operation theatre, the ambulance. Not stock images of foreign doctors, which patients recognise instantly.
A date on anything that changes. The insurance list, the OPD schedule, the tariff page. An undated page is assumed to be old.
Speed on mobile data. A relative at midnight on a patchy connection will not wait eight seconds.
Language. If a meaningful share of your patients read Kannada, Hindi or Tamil, the emergency information and the department pages should exist in that language.
Reviews answered. A Google review complaining about billing, answered calmly with a named person to contact, is read by every family comparing hospitals in your area.
What to do next
Ask the front desk to log every question asked on the phone for one week. Then check which of those questions your website answers on a page of its own. The gap is your build list. It will be shorter and more useful than any redesign proposal. Start with the insurance list and the consultant profiles, since those two carry the most traffic.
