Willow Creek OB-GYN ran on WordPress for over a decade, but no one owned keeping it updated. Here’s how a standing WordPress maintenance plan stopped the outages, patched the vulnerabilities, and kept patient appointment requests coming in without a full rebuild.
The Challenge
Willow Creek OB-GYN’s website had run on WordPress for over a decade with no one clearly responsible for keeping it current. Core, theme, and more than thirty plugins had gone without a real update cycle, several carrying known vulnerabilities. Updates only happened when something visibly broke, and the online appointment request form had failed silently more than once without anyone on staff noticing for days. There was no staging environment, no tested backup, and no monitoring, just a live patient-facing site one bad update away from going dark. The fix wasn’t a redesign, it was finally giving the WordPress install the ongoing care it had never had.
WordPress core and 30+ plugins hadn’t been meaningfully updated in over a year.
Established a monthly patch cycle for core, theme, and every plugin, tested on staging first.
Zero known vulnerabilities across the plugin stack today.
An untested plugin update silently broke the online appointment request form.
Automated form-submission testing paired with a staging-first update workflow.
100% form deliverability, zero silent failures since.
Outages were only ever caught when a patient called the front desk.
24/7 uptime and error monitoring with instant alerts to the support team.
99.9% uptime, zero unplanned outages in 10 months.
No documented backup strategy, a bad update could have meant rebuilding from scratch.
Automated daily off-site backups with tested one-click restore points.
Every update now has a safety net measured in minutes, not days.
Page speed had crept toward 6 seconds on mobile, where most patients search for appointments.
Image optimization, caching, and removal of unused plugins slowing the site down.
Mobile load time down to 1.9s, −68%.
No hardening in place, and no one could confirm the site met HIPAA-conscious hosting practices.
WordPress security hardening, a web application firewall, and monthly malware scans.
Zero security incidents since maintenance began.
The Approach
Audited core, theme, and every one of 30+ plugins for outdated versions, conflicts, and known vulnerabilities.
Patched the highest-risk plugins, restored the broken appointment form, and put real backups in place in week one.
Every future core or plugin update is now tested on staging before it ever touches the live site.
Uptime, malware, and form-submission monitoring wired in so issues surface before patients notice.
Monthly updates, security scans, and reporting under a standing WordPress support plan.
The Work
The Results
| Metric | Before | After | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Page load timeLCP, mobile | 5.9s | 1.9s | −68% |
| Unplanned outagesper quarter | 4 | 0 | −100% |
| Outdated or vulnerable pluginsat time of audit | 17 | 0 | −100% |
| Appointment form failure rateonline booking & intake forms | 19% | 0% | −100% |
| Security incidentsmalware & intrusion attempts | 3 in prior year | 0 | −100% |
| Mobile bounce ratesitewide | 54% | 33% | −39% |
Built to satisfy what a HIPAA-conscious OB-GYN practice expects from ongoing WordPress support
In Their Words
“We used to hold our breath every time WordPress asked us to update. Now the update happens, gets tested on staging, and we hear about it in a report, not from a patient.”Practice Administrator, Willow Creek OB-GYN
What's Included
Tell us how long it’s been since anyone checked your WordPress updates, and we’ll tell you honestly what a standing maintenance plan would fix.
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