Best intranet platforms for healthcare: a buyer’s guide

TL;DR 

• The “best” healthcare intranet is the one that reliably reaches frontline staff, reduces tool-hopping, and proves compliance, not the one with the longest feature list.
• Treat your intranet as a digital front door: one personalized entry point to comms, knowledge, and everyday tools, with secure access and strong search.
• Integration perception matters in healthcare because adoption depends on healthcare professionals’ trust and IT confidence. Don’t settle for “integration theater” (links and iframes).
• Build your shortlist using a weighted scorecard and require vendors to demo workflows end to end (identity → targeting → search → audit trail → analytics).
• Prioritize governance, security, and auditability (identity and access controls, content lifecycle, versioning, and reporting) to support regulated environments.
• Frontline friction is real: research shows large-scale costs to patient care tied to miscommunication and time lost searching for info. Ease of use is non-negotiable.
• If you’re evaluating Unily, validate integrations and governance in the ways that matter most to healthcare (SSO, permissions, M365, HRIS, ServiceNow, analytics), and use the checklist and scorecard below.

What this guide covers:

• • What healthcare providers should expect from a modern intranet solution (clinical + corporate needs)
  • Must-have capabilities vs nice-to-haves, with healthcare-specific watch-outs
  • How to evaluate integration depth (and avoid integration theater)
  • Comparison tables, decision framework, and a ready-to-use scorecard template
  • A balanced recommended shortlist of common intranet options
    

   

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What an intranet platform is (and what it isn’t) 

A modern intranet platform is not just a document repository or a news page. The best intranet platforms for healthcare function as a single, personalized entry point to internal communications, knowledge, and tools, across devices and locations. 

Analyst definitions of intranet platforms generally include: 

• A central portal experience
• Communication tools that facilitate multichannel, real time publishing (web, mobile, sometimes signage)
• Identity, access controls, and governance
• Search and knowledge discovery
• Extensibility and integrations (not just links) 

What it isn’t: 

• • Only SharePoint pages with inconsistent ownership
  • A comms app that can’t connect people to tools and workflows
  • A collection of deep links that pushes users into system sprawl

What healthcare organizations need from an intranet 

The healthcare industry has a unique mix of constraints: shift work, distributed sites, a large frontline population, and higher expectations for security and auditability. The intranet needs to work for clinicians, corporate teams, and support staff, without creating extra friction.

Key challenges in frontline and deskless healthcare environments 

The most common pain patterns look like this: 

• Hard-to-reach clinical staff: critical updates don’t land because people aren’t at desks or checking email frequently.
• Manual compliance tracking: policy read receipts and training acknowledgements live in spreadsheets, with little audit readiness.
• Too many systems to navigate: employees switch between HR portals, collaboration tools, knowledge bases, and internal sites to reach critical information, with no unified entry point.
• Recognition and culture are siloed: the moments that build community don’t scale across departments and locations.

These themes align with broader frontline research that highlights material losses from miscommunication and time wasted searching for information.

The “digital front door” requirement 

Healthcare workers should not have to remember “where to go” to do basic things: 

• find the latest protocol or SOP
• locate the right form
• find the right person
• get role-based updates
• access core tools quickly
  

That’s why a “digital front door” design matters: one central hub that brings comms, knowledge, and systems together in a secure, personalized experience. 

The CIO productivity lens

For IT leadership, the value case typically lands in: 

• reduced time-to-information
• fewer avoidable tickets and “where do I find…” requests
• governance and audit readiness
• standardization of access and permissions
• integration and workflow efficiency

IDC’s framing of modern digital workspaces emphasizes “orchestration” across tools, and an “architecture-first” approach including augmentation with AI. 

Security, privacy, and compliance considerations in healthcare 

You’re not buying a “HIPAA compliant intranet” like a badge. You’re buying a platform that supports HIPAA-aligned operational controls through governed document management, access, and auditability. 

Considerations table: security and compliance

Gartner’s definition of intranet packaged solutions explicitly includes security and identity, and access controls as core elements. 

Healthcare reality check: frontline workers often rely on personal devices for work-related access in practice, which raises governance and risk questions around patient data you need to address through platform design and policy. 

Integrations: why perception matters, and how to evaluate depth

In healthcare buying decisions, integration “feel” can decide the outcome:

• Clinicians won’t adopt a hub that doesn’t reliably surface the right tools and knowledge
• IT won’t champion a platform that can’t be governed, monitored, or scaled
• Procurement won’t greenlight a solution that increases operational risk

Integration depth vs “integration theater”

A vendor can say “we integrate” and still deliver a glorified link list.

A useful analyst standard here is that simple deep links, iFrames, or embedded experiences do not count as true extensibility. 

Use this mental model:

• Tier 0: Links
  Navigation shortcuts, bookmarks, static URL lists.
• Tier 1: Embedded
  Pages embedded via iFrame or web view. Convenient, but usually limited governance and analytics.
• Tier 2: Connected
  SSO, permissions-aware access, search indexing, and basic data exchange.
• Tier 3: Orchestrated
  Workflow-aware integrations: the intranet can trigger actions, write back, and support monitoring, analytics, and governance.

Integration Readiness Checklist 

Use this to assess any vendor, including Unily.

Identity and access

• Supports your SSO standards (SAML/OIDC), MFA, conditional access
• Role and location-based access controls, including external/contract staff if needed
• User provisioning and deprovisioning via HRIS/identity source of truth

Search and knowledge

• Federated search across core repositories (at minimum: intranet, M365/SharePoint, key knowledge bases)
• Permissions-aware search results (share information with no leaking restricted content)
• Search analytics (zero result queries, failed queries, click-through)

Core systems

• Microsoft 365 and Google experience: content, search, and daily entry points
• HRIS integrations (Workday, UKG, etc) for profiles and segmentation
• ITSM (ServiceNow or equivalent) for service content and request workflows

Governance and audit

• Audit logs for content creation, updates, approvals
• Read tracking / acknowledgement options for critical comms and policies
• Content lifecycle automation (expiry, review cycles, versioning)

Operations and monitoring

• Integration monitoring and error visibility (what broke, who is impacted)
• Clear integration roadmap and partner ecosystem
• API documentation and a supported extensibility model (not bespoke one-offs)

Integration Scorecard Template (0–5 per row)

Use-case fit: map your healthcare problems to platform requirements

Use-case fit table

Evaluation criteria: how to compare intranet platforms objectively

Questions to ask (by stakeholder)

CIO / IT leadership

• How do you handle identity, provisioning, and deprovisioning at scale?
• How do you prove integration depth beyond deep links and embeds?
• What controls exist for audit logs, retention, and exportability?

Internal Comms

• Can we target by role, site, and shift without manual lists?
• Can we measure reach and understanding, not just pageviews?

Clinical operations

• Can we reliably surface the right SOPs and forms for each unit?
• How does the mobile app support effective decision making for improved patient outcomes?
• How does mobile work under real connectivity constraints?

Security/compliance

• What governance exists for content lifecycle, approvals, and access controls?
• Can we produce audit-ready evidence of distribution and acknowledgements?

Procurement

• What is the true cost of ownership (licenses, services, integrations, admin time)?
• What does “implementation” include, and what is required from our team?

Decision framework: weighted scorecard template

Platform approaches: pros and cons

1) SaaS intranet platforms (intranet packaged solutions)

Best for: organizations that want a dedicated intranet with fast time to value, strong governance, and a unified experience across devices.

Pros

• Purpose-built intranet capabilities, governance, and publishing controls
• Often stronger out-of-the-box mobile experience
• Clear platform ownership model

Cons

• Requires integration diligence with M365 and core systems
• Vendor selection matters for long-term extensibility

2) Microsoft 365 / SharePoint-led approaches

Best for: organizations deeply standardized on Microsoft who want to assemble an intranet experience using SharePoint, Viva, and partner add-ons.

Pros

• Familiar ecosystem and content storage patterns
• Potentially lower incremental platform cost (depending on licensing)

Cons

• Can become fragmented across sites and owners
• Mobile and frontline experience quality varies significantly
• Governance and search can be inconsistent without strong design and ownership

3) Comms-first employee communication platforms

Best for: urgent comms reach and campaigns, especially where frontline access is the top priority.

Pros

• Strong broadcast, segmentation, and campaign tooling
• Often quick to deploy for comms use cases

Cons

• Might not function as a full digital front door
• Knowledge, search, and workflow depth can be limited

4) Composable experience stacks

Best for: health systems with mature digital workplace teams that want to stitch together best-of-breed tools with strong internal engineering support.

Pros

• Maximum flexibility
• Can align tightly to enterprise architecture goals

Cons

• Higher build and maintenance burden
• Governance and consistency depend on internal maturity

IDC’s guidance emphasizes an architecture-first approach and “orchestration” to reduce siloed experiences.

Comparison: leading intranet platforms for healthcare

There is no single “winner” across every healthcare environment. A practical shortlist should include options that match your platform strategy:

How to use this table: pick 3–6 vendors, then force a standardized demo script and score them using the weighted framework above.

Recommended shortlist table (high-level positioning)

Why Unily shows up in healthcare shortlists (evidence-based, not hype)

Unily’s own public healthcare stories highlight the easy access “digital front door” and adoption outcomes that healthcare buyers typically care about:

• Commonwealth Care Alliance: 98% user adoption and 55k monthly user sessions on an employee platform used to centralize resources and support role-based access.
• Dynacare: described 100% adoption and recognition among “best intranet design” lists, with the platform positioned as a daily destination for tools and information.
• Cardinal Health: Unily partnership reached 50k employees across desktop, mobile, and tablet to streamline comms and modernize the employee experience.

If you’re evaluating Unily specifically, the most important thing is to validate integration depth and governance in your environment, not to rely on generic integration claims. Use the Integration Readiness Checklist and Scorecard to make it concrete.

Implementation and adoption: what success looks like in healthcare

Step-by-step approach (practical)

1. Define your “start of shift” journeys
   What does a nurse, clinician, lab tech, and manager need in the first 2 minutes?
2. Build a minimum lovable front door
   1. targeted news and alerts
   2. role-based resource hubs
   3. federated search across your top repositories
   4. SSO and permission model
3. Set governance early
   1. content owners per domain (clinical policies, HR, IT, site operations)
   2. approval workflows and review cycles
   3. templates for consistency
4. Pilot in one clinical area and one corporate area
   1. measure time-to-info
   2. reduce “where is…” tickets
   3. tune targeting and search relevance
5. Scale with champions
   1. unit-based champions
   2. train content owners, not just end users
   3. publish “what changed” updates with proof of value

Common pitfalls (and how to avoid them)

• Pitfall: launching a homepage before solving “find the thing”
  Fix: prioritize search + role-based hubs first.
• Pitfall: “We’ll integrate later”
  Fix: make 2–3 critical integrations part of phase 1, and score vendors on depth.
• Pitfall: governance as an afterthought
  Fix: define content lifecycle (owner, review, expiry) before launch.

Cost and ROI: where value shows up

Healthcare intranet ROI often comes from a mix of:

• faster access to policies and resources
• reduced duplication and rework
• better comms reach to frontline workers
• fewer avoidable support tickets
• improved onboarding efficiency

Frontline research highlights the scale of losses from miscommunication and information friction, and the time burden of searching for needed information.

ROI value drivers table 

Future-ready intranets: what to look for next

Healthcare intranets are moving from “publishing” to “orchestration” and measurable outcomes, including AI-assisted discovery and workflow support. IDC explicitly points to augmentation with AI and orchestration across tools in the digital workspace landscape.

What to evaluate now

• Can the platform surface trusted answers quickly (and show where they came from)?
• Can it translate intent into action (requests, workflows, routing)?
• Can you govern it (permissions, audits, lifecycle), especially for policy content?

Final recommendations and next steps

1. Write your “start of shift” requirements and convert them into a demo script.
2. Use the Integration Readiness Checklist and Scorecard to force clarity and avoid integration theater.
3. Pick 3–6 vendors, score them with the weighted decision framework, then validate with references in regulated, frontline-heavy environments.
   

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