North Valley Hospital won first place for a QHR-built site and Huron Regional Medical Center in South Dakota received first place for a non-QHR-built site. Forty-one U.S. hospitals participated in this year’s website competition. The primary judging criteria was based on search engine optimization and online features.

“It’s truly an honor for us to receive recognition for the unwavering hard work the staff put into the appearance and functionality of our website,” said Community Relations Coordinator Naomi Morrison. “Our main goal was to have our website be a ‘go-to place’ for health information. Respectively, we included the services we provide, biographies of the physicians who practice at North Valley Hospital, The Valley Café menus, Foundation information and much more.”

North Valley Hospital unveiled the new site this past June after almost a year of planning, creating and producing a welcoming place for the greater community to visit at their leisure.

“With the amount of effort that was placed into building this exquisite facility, it was important for us to create a website that was equally as beautiful and inviting to the community,” Morrison said. “The hospital has a lot to offer, and we used our website to demonstrate the hospitality that guests and patients receive in addition to providing a resource for the entire community.”

QHR’s “Best of the Web” Awards were created to increase awareness of what hospitals should strive for in their web designs, while, at the same time, challenging both QHR and non-QHR designers to make hospital sites that are effective marketing tools, as well as strong communication vehicles.

“This year’s winners demonstrated a clear understanding of how user-friendly and focused web design can improve hospital patient relations, community outreach, physician recruitment, as well as build awareness of the hospital and its services,” said QHR Vice President of Marketing Susan Hassell.