Premier Community HealthCare
Rebuilding a cornerstone of community health, from the ground up.
Premier Community HealthCare is a nonprofit healthcare system that serves Pasco and Hernando counties in central Florida. Since its humble beginnings in 1979 with a small group of volunteers, Premier has grown to serve 46,000+ patients with a care team of over 315 clinicians.
Premier removes barriers to healthcare by providing accessible treatment for uninsured and medically underserved communities. Their mix of primary and specialized care provides wraparound services to the entire family.
A new digital home for a cornerstone of community health
Premier came to Big Sea with a clear need: a website that could actually keep up with their organization. Their existing site was locked in a proprietary CMS, nearly impossible to update without developer help, and not built for the diverse patients relying on it every day.
They needed a strategic partner who understood healthcare. One who could untangle years of accumulated technical debt, rationalize a complex set of integrations, and design something that worked as hard as their care teams do.
The Problem
Updating an outdated website locked in a proprietary CMS
Providing fresh and relevant information
Premier’s former website was locked in a proprietary CMS that required a developer for even basic updates. The result: outdated content, incorrect information, and a site that quietly eroded patient trust every day it went unchanged.
Serving a diverse patient population
Premier’s patients range from senior citizens navigating Medicare to new parents scheduling their first pediatric visit. The old site wasn’t built for any of them. A healthcare website that’s hard to use doesn’t just frustrate patients, it creates real barriers to care for communities that already face enough of them.
Managing multiple integrations
Premier’s existing tools, including Epic MyChart for scheduling and patient portal access, had to be evaluated, rationalized, and either migrated or retired. Getting this wrong meant broken workflows for both patients and clinical staff.
The strategy
Collaborating with empathy and curiosity
To kick off research and discovery, the Big Sea team traveled to work side-by-side with the Premier team. Our full-day workshop allowed us to collaboratively identify website audiences and their individual needs. Establishing a strong partnership from day one helped us tackle challenges and move forward in lock step.
Translating a print brand to the web
Premier had recently developed new brand standards, but they needed to be translated to web-friendly colors and fonts — keeping accessibility and contrast at the forefront. After touring Premier’s newest facility, we sourced updated photos and introduced a design that uses negative space to create a calming, approachable vibe that mirrors the upscale yet welcoming medical center.
Introducing a smarter way to search
When it comes to accessing healthcare, patients need to know who is providing care, what kind of care is available, and where they need to go. We designed and developed a new system of custom post types that connect specialties, providers, and locations. Admins only need to update the backend once to publish that data throughout the site. Users can quickly find the info they need to confidently schedule care online.
Meeting accessibility standards
To meet Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0, our design and development teams ensured that everything from contrast to screen-reader controls met the standards. During our QA process, we tested not only for bugs but for accessibility across multiple devices, browsers, and screen sizes. The result is a website that Premier can be confident meets user needs.
We truly appreciated the opportunity to collaborate on the development of our organization’s website. Big Sea developed a genuine process to enhance the end-user experience, particularly in guiding the patient’s journey on the new website. We greatly appreciated the team’s creativity, professionalism, and responsiveness to feedback. The new website design reflects a fresh, modern look that aligns well with our mission and vision, and we are very pleased about the outcome of the project. It was a true collaboration from inception to implementation!
Cheryl PollockChief Advancement & Community Engagement Officer, Premier Community Health
The results
A fresh new site that looks better and works harder.
Patients can now find a trusted provider, book an appointment, and locate their nearest clinic without picking up the phone. The updated provider database gives patients the confidence to choose their own care, while an interactive location map removes the friction of finding in-network, nearby services.
Specialty programs — from women’s health to behavioral health — are no longer buried. They’re front and center, ensuring the community knows what’s available before they go looking elsewhere.
The result: a site that actively drives patients toward care, instead of making them work for it.
For a health center serving 46,000+ patients across Pasco and Hernando counties, many of them uninsured or underserved, a website that actually works isn’t a nice-to-have. It’s part of the care.
