Read how Ochsner Health turned to Yext to centralize, standardize, and automate structured data management.

Ochsner Health is the top nonprofit healthcare provider in the Gulf South. It offers expert care at 46 hospitals and over 370 health and urgent care centers. In 2024, Ochsner Health cared for more than 1.6 million people from every state in the nation and 63 countries. For 13 consecutive years, U.S. News & World Report has recognized Ochsner as the No. 1 hospital in Louisiana. Ochsner Children's has been recognized as the No. 1 hospital for kids in Louisiana every year since 2021.

As Katherine Staiano, AVP, Digital Content, Web Platforms and Technology, explains, Ochsner Health has ~5000 provider profiles in its database. From providers to location types, addresses and contact information, specialties, insurance, hours of operation, etc, Ochsner Health had at least 10 years of legacy data with limited structure, automation, or workflows in place. Before building out automation and workflows about 3 years ago, the profile data lived in several siloed sources, maintained by different stakeholders to different standards. Plus, all the data management, including provider profile updates, was manual.

Staiano recalls, "It was all people power behind the updates for our provider profiles. So, it was most critical to get structured data and a workflow specifically for our "Find a doctor" search. That's how prospective and existing patients are trying to search with us and book."

Ochsner had spent several years attempting to build their own internal data workflows and structures (several times, all with different sponsors and stakeholders inside the organization). But the project never really got off the ground because, as Staiano recalls, "there were always too many competing priorities." Ochsner Health then partnered with one data management vendor, but they cycled through their solution after a couple of years because it didn't get the job done.

In 2024, Ochsner Health brought in Yext and started using Yext Knowledge Graph to power their "Find a doctor" search. They also extended Knowledge Graph to power their "Location" search and the global site searches across the Ochsner Health website.

Staiano attests, "We knew we needed to bring in a third party, a company that specialized in this, to really get the workflow automated, reallocate that people power, and also make sure that we had the most real-time data, every single day, for our consumers to access."

Amber Welch, Vice President, Marketing and Digital Platforms at Ochsner Health, agrees. "We're very fortunate our C-suite is a huge advocate for digital technology. We have a lot of support there. So, when I explain the why behind our investment in our Knowledge Graph, it's easy to share how it fuels smart search and can really set us and our patients up for success. Knowledge Graph makes sure we're bringing up the most relevant results."

"With the AI component," Welch continues, "Yext Knowledge Graph learns. It gets smarter as patients type in new queries. We also give it a little nudge and help it on the back end by putting in the right schema markup. So, just like in a Google search, our patients can expect to find the most relevant information based on what they're putting in."

As Ochsner Health looks to the future of patient experience, Yext supports their long-term vision and is a core part of their SEO and AI search strategy.

Staiano agrees. She explains, "Knowledge Graph is not only good for our website experience search, but it also helps us perform stronger in search engines like Google. All our structured, relevant data really helps improve our SEO. So, we're not only improving our website experience. We're also improving the overall online experience for our community members seeking healthcare."

As for the future of search, Welch believes, "Customers and patients are always going to be changing the way they search, right? We know this. Once we were conditioned to search with certain keywords. Now with Google AI and Gemini, a lot of FAQs are becoming more and more important. Schema and structured data management in Knowledge Graph lets us scale and change quickly based on how consumers are changing and behaving."

With Yext, Ochsner Health is seeing the power of having structured data. With a strong, centralized source of truth in Knowledge Graph, Staiano reports they have all the data points in place and can quickly, effectively build workflows and gather insights to, in her words, "future proof" their business.

Staiano reveals they're not just using Knowledge Graph. Ochsner Health is also using Yext for business listing management, review monitoring, review requesting, review escalation, and review responses. She says, "We are using a lot of the features and offerings within Yext, and it's helped us because we're always looking for ways to work smarter."

She adds that they're working with Yext as they look at ways to create additional platform consolidation. They're looking at opening up new ways to power and inform their website experience, and share vital healthcare information with patients. Ochsner Health is also using Knowledge Graph to open up new access to search trends and data for continued success.

Staiano and Welch agree: Yext Knowledge Graph is a business-critical tool for their healthcare brand.

Welch reflects on how Yext Knowledge Graph creates an efficient, optimized experience for patients, too. She explains, "The one thing you don't want is for patients to put in a search term and nothing comes up, or the wrong thing comes up. With a website as large as ours, Knowledge Graph helps us pull the most relevant information for patients based on their search. Whether it's a service, treatment, provider, finding test results, or even searching for a job, Yext ensures we're pulling in the right call to action for them. It makes sure we guide them through a large, complex, and sometimes overwhelming website."

So whether patients are conducting an unbranded search on Google or ChatGPT or searching the Ochsner Health website itself, Knowledge Graph is delivering on simplicity, accuracy, and relevance. Welch calls it "seamless" — and it's making all the difference for their brand and their patients.

To learn more about Yext's offerings, book a demo today.