Visiting Nurse Service of New York Debuts State-Of-The-Art Home Health Care Website

The Visiting Nurse Service of New York (VNSNY), the nation’s largest not-for-profit home health care organization, will unveil a top-to-bottom re-launch of its consumer website on November 18th, utilizing state-of-the-art technology, providing new content and offering a dramatically different visual presentation (www.vnsny.org). The site, created by Digital Pulp, VNSNY’s interactive marketing agency of record, is in lock-step with the overall marketing communications effort kicked off by VNSNY this fall throughout New York City, and Westchester and Nassau Counties.

The new advertising campaign was designed to educate, inform and motivate New Yorkers about home health care and get people to consider their home health care options before they experience a personal or family crisis, as emphasized in the tagline “The Right Care Now.” Digital Pulp was also responsible for creating the online advertising and managing the advertising buy and paid search efforts. (http://digitalpulp.com/showcase/client.vnsny.html)

Consumer Empowerment and a More Personal Voice

The goal of the new VNSNY site is to reflect VNSNY’s commitment to caregiver and patient empowerment. Users of the site will be able to easily find answers to their questions about home health care, including how health insurance for home health care works, what services are available from VNSNY and, according to Michael Bernstein, chief marketing officer of the Visiting Nurse Service of New York, “why the choice of a home health care provider is just as important as choosing a doctor or a hospital.” Bernstein continued, “Consumers are becoming more directly involved in health care decisions, wishing to remain independent and spend less time in institutional settings. As the industry leader, we felt we should provide them with the information and tools they need to better understand their options in meeting those needs.”

Speaking of the new website, Ron Fierman, president, Digital Pulp said, "Home health care industry websites tend to be institutional in design and lack a tone, manner and voice that connects to people and provides them with real life answers. This new site vastly improves on that.” He adds that “we know an effective website is one of the best ways to learn about a category and have direct contact with consumers. We’re pleased to have advanced this important tool to a state-of-the-art vehicle for VNSNY that will help consumers make educated, comforting choices, day or night."

The new site’s back-end is constructed using an open source content management system that will allow VNSNY to add and update information quickly and easily. Additionally, Digital Pulp built two unique tools for the new website: one, the VNSNY Answers Advisor, guides consumers through a short series of questions to provide immediate answers to their specific health care challenge; the other, Health Cost Calculator, provides consumers fast facts and recommendations to help them plan for potential future health care needs.

The new VNSNY website was also strategically planned and designed to include:

• Information organized by medical condition, such as heart disease; by life event, such as hospice; or by the nature of the service needed, such as skilled nursing;
• Larger, easy-to-read fonts, bigger graphics, increased white space and comfortable color combinations, created with baby boomers and their parents in mind;
• Easy-to-understand writing that is warmer and friendlier in tone than the traditional, more corporate voice used by health care websites.

Digital Pulp, a New York-based agency, handles a variety of clients such as Bausch & Lomb, Continental Airlines, The New York Botanical Garden, Lancome and Harvard Law School, among others. Its work has been recognized annually with awards from industry shows and organizations including The Webby's, The Interactive Media Awards, and The Web Marketing Association.

Visiting Nurse Service of New York is the largest not-for-profit home health care organization in the nation. In 2007, the organization provided 2,248,000 professional home visits covering everything from pre-natal to end-of life care to more than 131,600 patients throughout New York City and Westchester and Nassau Counties. Licensed by the New York State Department of Health, VNSNY is fully accredited by the Community Health Accreditation Program (CHAP) of the National League for Nursing. The agency was established in 1893 by Lillian D. Wald, the founder of public health nursing in the United States. For more information on VNSNY, please call 800-675-0391 or visit www.vnsny.org.