How to Manage Patient-Facing Content in a CMS
AdvancedQuick Answer
TL;DR
Patient-facing content in a CMS requires strict governance: clinical accuracy review by licensed medical professionals, legal and compliance approval, WCAG 2.1 AA accessibility compliance, plain language standards targeting a 6th–8th grade reading level, and regular content audits for medical accuracy. The CMS must enforce mandatory review workflows, maintain version history, and support structured content types for conditions, treatments, medications, and provider information — all linked to authoritative medical sources.
Key Takeaways
- All patient-facing health content must pass clinical review by licensed clinicians before publishing — the CMS must enforce this workflow, not just recommend it
- Health content should target a 6th–8th grade reading level; tools like Hemingway Editor or Readable.com can audit this
- Conditions, symptoms, treatments, and medications should be modeled as structured data with required fields, not free-form text
- Every patient-facing article needs a "last reviewed" date and a named medical reviewer — these should be required CMS fields
- WCAG 2.1 AA compliance is a legal requirement for most healthcare organizations under Section 508 and ADA