Fixing the slow site that was losing patients
Every second of load time loses mobile patients. We traced the root cause to server response, rebuilt caching and delivery, and restructured department pages patients actually search for.
The challenge
The site was slow enough that mobile patients were abandoning it before pages rendered. Previous attempts had focused on image compression and plugins, which addressed symptoms rather than the underlying cause.
What we did
- Traced the delay to server response time rather than front-end weight, which redirected the entire fix.
- Rebuilt caching and content delivery configuration at the hosting layer.
- Restructured department pages around the terms patients actually search for, rather than internal department naming.
- Consolidated overlapping pages that were competing with each other in search.
- Established a monthly performance check so regressions get caught rather than accumulating.
The result
Figures are drawn from client reporting over the engagement period and rounded for confidentiality. Results depend on catchment, specialty mix, capacity and competition, and are not a prediction for any other hospital.
What we learned
Most hospital site speed problems are diagnosed at the wrong layer. Compressing images on a site with slow server response is optimising the wrong thing — measure time to first byte before touching anything else.