Starting in February, faculty and staff who manage public-facing websites for UF Health colleges and departments as well as some hospital-based programs will be asked to begin migrating their public web content to a new and improved management system, named Apollo 2.0.

Apollo was designed in-house, based on WordPress, by our own Web Services experts. It provides our internal editors with expanded options to engage their target audiences. The appealing visual design includes more customization options. Improved performance capabilities include a more nimble search function to help visitors sort through content as well as a better mobile experience.

“This is an exciting and necessary step for UF Health to stay at the forefront with best practices that serve our stakeholders,” said Carlos Morales, director of UF Health IT/Communications Web Services. “Most people turn to the internet first to gather critical information then make important decisions. Our sites will deliver what they need and help them quickly connect with UF Health.”

Our content must showcase our expertise, available resources and opportunities. We have to appeal to current and potential new patients, faculty, staff and students; donors and individuals or groups who may decide to offer philanthropic support; and research-funding agencies, as well as our peers and the public.

The Web Services team is part of UF Health IT Services and UF Health Communications. The group worked for months to develop the Apollo platform around WordPress’ latest emerging super-tool: Gutenberg.

The improved system will be familiar to our college and department-based web editors because we already use WordPress. They will use this shift to reassess and update their web materials. Morales says more than 90 percent of their content can automatically transition, and the average editor will need only an hour or two to make the switch. Web Services will support them: A beta-test group is helping them work out bugs to make the process as smooth as possible.

As the colleges, institutes and other programs begin to adopt Apollo 2.0, the Web Services team will begin working on the next phase: to migrate content from UFHealth.org to the new system. We will communicate to keep everyone, including our patients and public audiences, informed about the changes they will see.

“Our team has been working tirelessly, right along with WordPress, to adopt the Gutenberg platform,” Morales added. “We’re part of the next evolution of how people build and manage web sites. We’re really proud to have a talented team that can customize tools for our academic health center partners and their critical audiences.”