Posting Health Info on Your Website Is a Great Idea. Featuring the ‘Derek Jeter Herpes Tree’ Is Not

Offering information on various disease states, seasonal health concerns, and public health initiatives on your website is a great way to build engagement and establish a reputation as a trustworthy partner in patients’ wellbeing. Relying on technology to populate webpages with that information can be a great timesaver and help keep costs down—as long as that technology doesn’t run amok, as it apparently did recently on the website of a New York City urgent care operation recently. As noted in an article published by Time magazine, visitors to the UC site could get all the “information” they would ever need on the Derek Jeter herpes tree (purportedly a real thing that would concern only botanists) and what happens when unicorns take ketamine (not a real thing, presumably). According to the Time piece, it’s likely the problem was automated generation of searchable terms designed to push the business to the top of the screen when prospective patients search for urgent care centers. While this is all good for a laugh, it’s terrible for the image of the urgent care operator. We all need to rely on technology to a greater extent all the time, but this episode is a reminder that human oversite is still essential.