ARA Diagnostic Imaging Launches Theranostics Website for Improved Patient Support

In December 2023, ARA Diagnostic Imaging launched a subsite of its main website, devoted to theranostics treatments. Funded by the 2023 AHRA and Canon Putting Patients First Grant program, ARA received the $10,000 grant after submitting a proposal to develop a website in English and Spanish. The end goal was improving patient understanding of and access to theranostics, a fast-developing area of cancer diagnosis and therapy.

ARA was the first provider of these cutting-edge treatments in Central Texas and began offering them at a time when there was almost no knowledge of such treatments in the general population. Consequently, ARA felt that a comprehensive approach was needed to inform and educate patients and providers about the treatments. Along with print materials, creating a web-based source of information was absolutely necessary.

What follows is some background and insight into creating theranostics.ausrad.com.

Applying for the AHRA and Canon Putting Patients First Grant

For the past 14 years, Canon Medical Systems USA, Inc., has partnered with AHRA in support of the Putting Patients First program, awarding more than 70 grants dedicated to improving patient care and developing best imaging practices in the areas of CT, PET/CT, MRI, ultrasound, X-ray, and vascular. This collaboration seeks to improve patient care, safety, and cybersecurity in imaging through grants that fund programs, training, and seminars at IDN/hospital systems, local hospitals, and imaging centers.

ARA medical and management leaders saw an opportunity to fulfill the goals of the grant by proposing to develop a website, presenting the ARA Theranostics Center, its available treatments, staff, radiologists, and other information that would improve public understanding of next-generation treatments for English and Spanish speakers. ARA would design the site to be expandable and encompass new treatments as they met FDA approval. The match between the grant guidelines and ARA’s public communication goals was a good fit.

Rationale for a Specialized Website 

ARA was seeking a way to convey to a nonmedical audience the complex concepts and practical applications of its theranostics offerings. Initial attempts to do so through the existing ARA website were hampered by lack of dedicated focus and limited scalability. In addition, ARA serves a large Spanish-speaking population, for which comprehensive information about theranostics had not been available. ARA felt that a dedicated theranostics subsite in English and Spanish was an excellent way to address these issues.

Starting goals for development of the subsite included the following components in English and Spanish:

• The concept of radiopharmaceuticals and their use in diagnosis and treatment.
• The risks and benefits of theranostics treatment.
• The consultation process and determining eligibility for theranostics treatment.
• The logistics of theranostics treatment and what the patient should expect during treatment and between treatments, including coordination with the patient’s primary oncology care provider.
• Methods to safely manage radiation exposure around friends and family after the treatment.

Creating the ARA Theranostics Subsite

In March 2023, ARA began development of the site that would become theranostics.ausrad.com, using in-house expertise in subject matter and site-building, alongside the development skills of an outside agency.

On the web development side, Julia Austin, ARA senior creative strategist, coordinated the project and wrote and edited content. Josh Power, senior development project manager with Workhorse Marketing, managed the back-end development. After Josh completed the essential development, Jim Chapin, ARA digital marketing manager, constructed many of the pages. Waleska Bonthrone, with Spanish for All Austin, translated the finished English site into Spanish.

Knowledge experts who consulted on and approved the site were all from the ARA Theranostics Center. ARA molecular radiologist Dr John Leahy has been the driving force behind building the Theranostics Center. He contributed to and approved the final site. Dr Simon Trubek, chief of molecular radiology at ARA, also reviewed and approved the site. Shannon Wood, MA, clinic manager at Midtown, helped obtain the grant, plan the project, and was a content consultant.

Other content consultants at Midtown include Jon Berg, molecular imaging and radiation safety coordinator; Christopher Dubec, technologist, molecular imaging and theranostics; and Alex DiFonzo, theranostics coordinator.

Website Development Considerations

The ARA and Workhorse Marketing teams examined the best way to develop the site. The plan considered best practices, some based on meeting legal conformance and others specific to the needs of the theranostics site. Factors considered included:

• Performant code and web hosting for strong page speed scores, making for a quality experience to visit the site.
• Modern on-page search engine optimization (SEO) implementation with relevant Schema markup, to help ensure the site could be easily found via web search.
• A lean code base that could grow with the website. 

Web Content Accessibility conformance (ADA and WCAG 2.1) was a priority as well, to ensure the site was useful to as many patients as possible. The team selected WordPress CMA for content and back-end management.

From an SEO perspective, ARA determined that constructing a subsite on their already strong main website would be most effective. Workhorse senior developer Josh Power explains, “Developing the new theranostics website as a microsite on a subdomain of the parent website primarily allowed us to take advantage of the strength of the parent domain’s existing, above-average backlink profile. Publishing as a subdomain provided the new page content with the same strong foundation that the parent domain enjoys, which is one of many factors that can help content perform well in organic search.”

Theranostics.ausrad.com also utilizes a multilingual plugin called WPML, which allows all content (pages, posts, navigation menus, on-page SEO data) to be translated into Spanish. This helps provide a better website experience for a much wider Texas audience, as well as builds brand strength and recognition.

Website administrators and translators were already familiar with the plugin from its use on the parent website, so it was a logical choice. Also, if translating content into additional languages becomes necessary in the future, all the tools are already in place.

Designing the Site

When considering design, the ARA marketing team wanted to make sure the subsite was recognizable as an ARA brand but sufficiently differentiated to stand out to the user. The team chose to stay within the ARA color palette, but emphasize the darker blues and greens, making the aqua and red secondary. To tie the subsite to the main site, the team echoed many of the main site page designs while adding a few new page layouts and porting some information from the main site. A green and blue starburst graphic element that had been used since initial ARA theranostics marketing was retained in the layout, conveying cutting-edge technology and focused treatment.

Future Outlook

Since launching the website, ARA has received positive feedback from a number of patients. “Patients are telling me that they looked up the treatments on our site and feel as though they had a decent understanding of what to expect even before we did the consult,” saysDiFonzo. “They also feel much less anxious about the treatments after going over the site resources.”

DiFonzo says, “I believe the website has had a significant impact on the anxiety level of both patients and family coming into the consults. It has also allowed them to come with a list of questions, which has led to much better conversations focusing on their specific needs.”

The launch of theranostics.ausrad.com marks a positive step forward in ARA’s healthcare communication and patient engagement. By developing a bilingual website, ARA has not only been able to offer greater understanding of complex treatments, but also ensure accessibility for both English and Spanish-speaking communities — meeting local patients where they are, in a way that’s meaningful to them. This modern approach offers greater inclusivity and will pave the way for more patient-centered digital solutions that can bridge knowledge gaps and foster a more informed and connected patient population.

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The ARA team is deeply grateful to AHRA and Canon for making theranostics.ausrad.com possible.

ARA Diagnostic Imaging is a leading provider of radiology in Central Texas, with 17 outpatient imaging centers and a presence in 24 area hospitals. Founded in 1954, ARA has a history of bringing innovative technology and procedures to area patients and providers. ARA is physician-led, with over 110 subspecialized radiologists, including musculoskeletal radiologists, neuroradiologists, body imagers, breast imagers, pediatric radiologists, interventional and neurointerventional radiologists, emergency radiologists, and molecular radiologists. The new ARA Theranostics Center is an SNMMI Radiopharmaceutical Therapy Center of Excellence. ARA maintains a high patient satisfaction rate and takes pride in providing our patients with an excellent standard of care. To learn more, visit theranostics.ausrad.com.