Rochester Regional Health, formed in 2014 by combining Rochester General and Unity Health systems, is an extensive health system network located in western New York.
It includes 9 hospitals, 557 healthcare practice locations, a college of health careers, outpatient laboratories, rehabilitation programs, surgical centers, independent and assisted living centers, skilled nursing facilities, and more than 19.4K system employees. Rochester is the second largest employer in the New York State region and stands out for its ability to provide the highest-quality care in the area.
As an entity that works with protected health information (PHI) and electronic protected health information (ePHI), Rochester Regional is subject to the US Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA).
Switching from Google Analytics to a familiar analytics platform that is privacy-friendly and user-centric
As an HIPAA-covered entity, Rochester Regional is obligated to implement physical, network, and procedural security measures to comply with HIPAA standards and adhere to the guidelines provided by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). Additionally, HIPAA mandates entering into a business associates agreement (BAA).
Therefore, Rochester Regional’s team faces the challenge of conducting effective data analysis while complying with regulations specific to its industry.
Initially, Rochester Regional used Universal Analytics for analysis. However, with the growing legal concerns about patient data management and the new HHS regulations that label Google Analytics tracking technology as non-compliant, they opted to switch to a more suitable platform for managing patient data.
“In December 2022, the HHS issued guidelines banning the collection of visitors’ IP addresses along with the page URLs they visited on healthcare-related websites through tools like Google Analytics. It was clear to us that, since Google Analytics did not meet the HHS criteria and would not sign a BAA with us, we had to pursue a different option. Otherwise, we would be in the dark and have no analytics for our website at all.”
Tyler Pierce
Manager, Digital Engagement at Rochester Regional Health
At the same time, they wanted to work with an easy-to-use, familiar, and reliable analytics platform.
“Piwik PRO felt familiar with both the UI and metrics. It has a low learning curve due to its similarity to Google Analytics, and we wanted to continue tracking all of the information we historically wished to capture in a HIPAA-compliant and easy way. We considered the price point, familiarity, capabilities, and functionality. The combination of all these factors led us to choose Piwik PRO. There wasn’t any other option on the market that allowed us to capture all the data we wanted and ensure it was HIPAA-compliant.”
Tyler Pierce
Manager, Digital Engagement at Rochester Regional Health
After exploring various options, Rochester Regional found out that the data offered by other platforms wasn’t granular enough for their needs.
Some other vendors in the market allowed them to clean Google Analytics data. However, in doing so, they would lose crucial data points like the location, the IP address, and specific identifiers that link it to an individual. With Piwik PRO, Rochester could still do all that securely and compliantly.
Smooth and simple implementation
Changing analytics platforms might be challenging, as it involves reimplementation and retraining. However, in a joint effort, Rochester Regional and Piwik PRO’s implementation specialists worked together to ensure a seamless transition, migrating the company’s setup from Google Analytics and Google Tag Manager. Among Rochester’s requirements was a secure hosting option, so they chose a private Azure cloud. Rochester found the implementation process very easy and swift.
“Getting started with Piwik PRO was very easy. It was as simple as placing the tracking code on our website. We use Tag Manager, and we went with the cloud-based platform, and we had it all set up within days. We could swiftly continue to track our analytics in a better, more secure way and make sure that we were still able to deploy our tracking pixels and our cookie consent platform in an easy way that was familiar to us.”
Tyler Pierce
Manager, Digital Engagement at Rochester Regional Health
Data-driven decision-making through analytics and reporting
Rochester Regional uses analytics and reporting to analyze all the digital touchpoints that a patient may have within the organization, from websites to social media and email campaigns. They also assess the content strategies they implement for the organization.
“My team makes many decisions based on data. So, if we notice in Piwik PRO that people are interacting with our content differently than we assumed, then we pivot and make decisions to align with that. There certainly was a reason why we purchased Piwik PRO. We wanted to analyze the data to see how people are interacting with our digital platforms, and we take that very seriously.”
Tyler Pierce
Manager, Digital Engagement at Rochester Regional Health
Thanks to Piwik PRO Analytics, Rochester uncovered data that enabled them to optimize their campaign effectively, improve user experience, and address traffic issues. By examining a campaign aimed at informing patients about receiving care quickly and efficiently, Rochester discovered that having multiple pages with campaign information was leading to scattered traffic.
By using Piwik PRO Analytics Suite, they discovered that users were often confused and accessed the platform through multiple entry points. They centralized all the campaign information to one page and then validated it with Piwik PRO. They found that this approach was much more helpful and easier for the users to discover the information. This improvement led to exponential traffic growth.
“We use analytics and reporting and mainly focus on the most active users on the website and the average time spent on the website. This helps us ensure success across different platforms by attracting visitors from various sources and confirming that they are engaging with the website. We also monitor unique users and clicks. Furthermore, we have found the video views really helpful. That’s something that’s not out of the box with other platforms.”
Tyler Pierce
Manager, Digital Engagement at Rochester Regional Health
Thanks to Piwik PRO, the team is able to monitor search engine optimization effectively.
“We track SEO progress by analyzing website traffic and how visitors are reaching the site so that we can make assumptions based on the data. Insights from Piwik PRO, paired with data from SEO tools such as Moz, help us verify and track which keywords we should use to attract more visitors to our website.”
Tyler Pierce
Manager, Digital Engagement at Rochester Regional Health
Piwik PRO empowered Rochester Regional to achieve all its goals
A fruitful cooperation with Piwik PRO allowed Rochester Regional to improve its websites’ performance, optimize campaigns, and enhance customer experience thanks to the reliable insights gathered about their visitors and their behavior with a user-friendly analytics platform. Piwik PRO allows Rochester to continue data collection and analysis and deploy tracking pixels and cookie consent platform in an HIPAA-compliant way.
“Piwik PRO lived up to our expectations. It is a great product, and I appreciate using it. It allows us to continue tracking the analytics in a privacy-friendly and familiar way, which was one of the factors that led us to choose this platform.”
Tyler Pierce
Manager, Digital Engagement at Rochester Regional Health
Industry:
Healthcare
Locations:
Western, Central, and Northern New York, United States
Highlights:
- Complying with HIPAA standards and HHS guidelines, including signing a BAA and using secure hosting.
- Easy and effortless transition from Google Analytics to Piwik PRO, a privacy-focused and user-friendly analytics platform.
- Continuing data analysis in a familiar and compliant way without losing crucial data points.
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