Branding Your Hospital Intranet: Why it Needs a Personality of its Own

The hospital Intranet is your go-to source for all things happening amongst your organization. That said, the personality of the Intranet should reflect the brand of the hospital and work culture with the information it provides, design elements and a name.

Developing your Intranet with a specific brand allows employees to better see it as an important part of the workplace, makes it more hands-on, and differentiates it from other sources of information.

Utilize these ideas to better brand your Intranet:

Have a brand name: There is only one syllable difference between the words internet and Intranet. If you give the Intranet a name, others start using it too. This makes it stand out as its own exclusive source of hospital information.

We have seen many great Intranet brand names created throughout our experiences. Some of our favorites were The Pulse, The Vine, The Point, The Core. Now, whenever their employees use these terms, it is clear to their colleagues, physicians, and partners that they are talking about the Intranet and not the internet. Prior to this, every mention of Intranet was met with the question: “Did you mean the internet or the Intranet?”

Keep in mind that when you finalize a name, it should be easy to pronounce and reflect the brand of your organization.

Provide unique value: The Intranet needs to provide something that the internet cannot.
It could be hospital updates, medical / insurance / financial reports, social networking, bulletin boards – theoretically, it could take any form, so it is best to decide which direction it should go beforehand. It is still not too late if it has already been launched.


• What will be the primary purpose/function of the Intranet?
•  Which secondary functions should it provide?
•  Who would be the manager of the intranet? Or is it to be self–regulated?
•  Should there be any content publishing guidelines? Or should users be able to post whatever they want?

You also need to think about how the hospital Intranet will help achieve the organization’s overall objectives. Has a user survey been distributed, asking hospital employees what they would like to see in the Intranet? If not, now is as good a time as any other. Taking into consideration what staff wants and needs from an Intranet will help it deliver greater value.

Look–and–feel: A clean, professional and intuitive Intranet design will make it simple for all employees to use. Because it needs to be in line with organizational goals, it wouldn’t hurt if design elements of the intranet resembled that of the corporate website. But then again, corporate websites tend to be upgraded periodically, and it would be cost–ineffective to keep changing the layout of the Intranet. The solution is to have some (not all) elements resemble the hospital’s website, so that users identify the Intranet as belonging to the hospital.

If the hospital Intranet was built with third–party software that bears no connection to the hospital, you should change its appearance, keeping the above guidelines in mind. Additionally, the design elements should be consistent throughout the Intranet, including color, type and layout choices.

Holding your Intranet to brand standards makes it cohesive and consistent with your work culture and organization as a whole. This makes it recognizable to employees as an extension of the hospital and a go-to source while on the job.