Revolutionary advancements in medicine are transforming our world at breakneck speed, but keeping pace with the barrage of new treatments, technologies, and research is a formidable challenge for patients, families, healthcare professionals, and researchers.

More than 127 million people each month turn to WebMD and Medscape for credible medical information, in-depth reference material, and tools related to health and wellness. WebMD provides easy-to-understand news, information, personal stories, and tools that help individuals better understand and manage their health. Medscape is the number one source of medical information — news, features, continuing medical education, and drug reference tools — for medical professionals including doctors, nurses, pharmacists, and students.

On both platforms, video is a primary tool for sharing information with audiences. WebMD and Medscape Studios produce over 3,000 videos a year — an average of almost 60 videos every week, and just over 8 videos every single day. Videos can range from personal documentary stories, expert interviews, and roundtable discussions to animated explainers, live events, webinars, and how-to videos.

Zachary Bennett, Vice President of WedMD and Medscape Studios, has always been captivated by the engaging nature of video. “I’ve always explored how to use media to share messages,” says Bennett. “The tools to create are constantly changing, from the Super 8 cameras of my childhood to the editing capabilities of smartphones. But despite these advancements, the heart of the matter remains unchanged: the stories we tell must resonate. And the best part now is that I get to work with a talented team focused on educating the world about health.”

The biggest challenges, according to Bennett, exist in the volume and speed of video produced for WebMD and Medscape. The 60-person production team needs to operate at high standards across multiple divisions and hundreds of content types. Not only do they need to keep up to date on each project, but they are continuously working to improve and innovate. WebMD and Medscape also have a responsibility to their audiences to make sure that videos contain the most timely, accurate information possible, which can require multiple review cycles with medical experts.

Working with Adobe Creative Cloud, Frame.io, and Adobe Workfront, WebMD created a video workflow that is efficient, agile, and fully compatible with flexible remote work. This remote workflow enabled the production team to increase the number of videos they produced by 40% over the course of three years.

“We’re always looking for ways to eliminate obstacles so that we can focus on creating content,” says Bennett. “When you combine the Adobe video workflow with Frame.io and Workfront, the possibilities are endless. I know most people don’t think that project management could be exciting, but with Adobe, it is.”

Managing efficient workflows

WebMD built its video workflow around Adobe apps, particularly Adobe Premiere Pro and After Effects. Features such as dynamic link help accelerate the editing process by allowing editors to efficiently change graphics without constant rendering or exporting. But for the production team, one of the most time-consuming parts of creating videos simply involved managing the workflow.

“While we have just over 60 people on our team, hundreds of people—both internally and externally—are involved in content creation from planning to reviews to publication and promotion,” says Bennett. “We may have different review cycles for different types of content, and trying to keep track of it all can be difficult. Workfront transforms how we manage videos. Rather than emailing schedules, notes, and reminders to everyone, we can track everything in the application and have visibility on what’s happening at any moment.”

The studio team can easily create and manage timelines for every type of video production in one place, standardizing the format to make it easier to schedule videos. Most importantly, Workfront gives Bennett visibility into the team's workloads with easy-to-use reporting. These reports show Bennett just how long it takes to produce different types of projects, so he can balance assignments based on who has time and identify obstacles that slow the team down.

“Workfront helps us find ways to improve workflows and speed up turnaround times,” says Bennett. “One of the first projects that we optimized was Twitter videos. When we started, it took 30 days from inception to posting: sourcing talent, scripting, filming or creating graphics, finalizing, and medical reviews. We quickly found ways to shave that down to 20 days for filmed video, and as little as seven days for simpler graphic-based videos.”

Agile remote edits and reviews

WebMD and Medscape have always required some level of remote production and editing capabilities. Video producers often travel around the world to capture content, anything from profiling a patient in Los Angeles to interviewing experts at a medical conference in The Netherlands. WebMD and Medscape have used many methods to keep post-production on track—from mailing hard drives to uploading files to various file-sharing sites—in order to get footage to our editors working out of the headquarters in New York.

When the pandemic hit, editors were locked out of headquarters due to quarantine, but the work couldn’t stop. They needed to decentralize—and fast. But the New York-based server wasn’t fast enough to support editing and uploading over VPN for all editors. Bennett and his team immediately started testing remote systems and quickly found one with LucidLink.

“Using Premiere Pro with LucidLink Filespaces is just as straightforward as using a local server,” says Bennett. “It means that we can have editors anywhere using the exact same workflow as if they were in our studio. Not only did it help us transition to working fully remote during the pandemic, but it also helped us expand our talent pool by allowing us to hire people anywhere in the world.”

With Frame.io, WebMD also brings the agility and flexibility of remote workflows to their content reviews. Previously, editors would upload their work to a shared file service, such as Microsoft SharePoint, Google Drive, or Dropbox, and reviewers would email comments back and forth.

Now, an editor uploads a project, and all contributors are notified that the latest edit is ready for review. Comments can be added by all reviewers in the same place, so they can read, respond to, or upvote the other comments; the editor has all reviews consolidated in one spot, instead of juggling email threads. And the entire process is tracked automatically with Workfront, so project managers can see when the review has started or been completed.

“Frame.io makes our review workflow twice as fast,” says Bennett. “All of the notes are gathered in one place, so the editor spends much less time trying to consolidate notes or clarify feedback. It is also extremely easy to use. Most of our reviewers are medical professionals, not videographers, but it’s very easy for them to learn how to work with it. They can even review videos on a mobile device, which is huge for busy professionals.”

Accurate medical information for diverse audiences

Using a combination of both Frame.io and Workfront to review and manage workflows, Bennett is working to expand reviews for WebMD videos to reviews for Medscape’s educational and professional videos as well as expanding the workflow used for WebMD videos to Medscape's content as well.

“I’m excited to see how the integration across the solutions continues to improve and unlock new possibilities,” says Bennett. “Reviews are so critical to our work at WebMD and Medscape. By using Adobe apps to improve internal workflows and reviews, we can concentrate on delivering important medical videos that are accurate and engaging.”

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