Before most patients in Kenya walk into a clinic for the first time, they check it on their phone. That makes a clinic website less of an extra and more of a front door: a facility with nothing online gets compared with the one down the road that shows a few real photos and a number that actually rings. Below we cover what a healthcare website in Kenya should contain, the points Kenyan law raises, and what you can expect to spend.
How patients find a clinic online
Unless someone has recommended you, a patient will not type your facility's name. They type a need plus a town: "paediatrician Mombasa", "laboratory near me", "dental clinic Nairobi", "maternity hospital Nakuru". Then they open two or three of the results and choose whichever one settles their doubts quickest.
So the site has one task, and impressing people is not it. It has to answer six questions, roughly in this order. Are you open? Do you treat my problem? Do you accept my cover? Which doctor will I see? Where exactly are you? How do I book?
Pages and details to include
- Services and specialities, described the way patients describe them. Say "antenatal care" rather than "obstetric services", and use the words an anxious person would type into a search box.
- A profile for each practitioner, giving speciality, qualifications and the days they see patients. People trust a named doctor more than a building, and a doctor making a referral wants to know who will receive the patient.
- Hours, stating clearly whether casualty runs 24 hours or there is an on-call number, and what Sunday looks like.
- Accepted cover and payment options. The next section explains why this needs fresh attention.
- Directions: a map, a nearby landmark, and how to get there by matatu or boda. Away from the major towns, a map pin by itself often leaves people lost.
- A single, clear way to book, shown again at the foot of every page.
- Contact and emergency numbers that dial when tapped on a phone.
Cover: NHIF has gone, and SHA has replaced it
Of everything we review on Kenyan health websites, this is the error we meet most often. There is no NHIF any more. The Social Health Authority (SHA) took its place under the Social Health Insurance Act and started operating on 1 October 2024.
If your site still says "NHIF accepted", every visitor learns that the page has been left alone for more than a year. Facilities contracted by SHA should state it plainly. Name the private insurers you accept too, since that is the question reception fields all day long, and update the list whenever it changes: a stale insurer list leads to disputes at the counter.
Patient data under the Data Protection Act 2019
Kenya's Data Protection Act 2019 classes health information as sensitive personal data. Small facilities are often caught out by what follows from that. Any organisation processing sensitive personal data, health care included, is expected to register with the Office of the Data Protection Commissioner, even when its turnover and staff numbers fall under the limits that would normally exempt a small business.
You register with the ODPC yourself. A hosting provider cannot register on your behalf, and buying a hosting plan does not make anyone compliant. Hosting covers the technical side: HTTPS across the whole site, secure email accounts, access control and backups.
For the website itself, follow two rules. Keep clinical records off the public site; an electronic medical records system belongs somewhere separate. And whenever a form collects personal details, even a name and a phone number for a call back, explain on that page how you will use them and publish a privacy policy.
It is also worth being clear that HIPAA is a United States law and has no force in Kenya. A vendor selling "HIPAA compliant" hosting to a Kenyan clinic is recycling American sales copy.
Picking a domain name
KENIC manages Kenyan domains. For a health facility, three patterns matter:
- yourclinic.co.ke: the usual choice for a private clinic, hospital, pharmacy, laboratory or dental practice, and the ending patients expect to type.
- yourmission.or.ke: .or.ke is Kenya's space for non-profit organisations, which makes it a good fit for a health NGO or a mission hospital.
- drsurname.co.ke: for a consultant in private practice under their own name.
Watch the spelling. Kenya's non-profit ending is .or.ke; .org.ke does not exist, whatever many guides say. If you are unsure which one suits you, ask before you buy, since changing later means reprinting everything that carries your address.
Bookings: begin with something small
Live online booking with real-time slots is tempting, but it is rarely the right first step. Most Kenyan facilities get better results from a short request form that emails the front desk, placed beside a WhatsApp link, because patients already use WhatsApp every day. Move to full booking once you know how many requests arrive and someone is responsible for the diary. A booking calendar that nobody watches does more harm than having none.
Real photographs build trust
Show your own building, your own reception area and your own team. Stock pictures of grinning doctors in hospitals nobody recognises backfire, because patients can spot them. A handful of honest shots of a clean, real clinic do more than a gallery of stock images. If the premises are modest, photograph them with care instead of hiding them.
What you will spend
Probably less than you think. Registering a .co.ke domain costs KSh 1,200, with renewal at KSh 1,700 a year; when a first-year promotion is running, you will see it on the domains page. Shared hosting begins at KSh 80 a month, and most clinics fit comfortably on a mid-range plan once the photographs and downloadable forms are in place. You can pay by M-Pesa or card. Would you rather not build it yourself? We can build it for you.
Mistakes we see often
- Clinical records sitting on the public website.
- Still showing NHIF rather than SHA, which makes the page look abandoned.
- Phone numbers that cannot be tapped to call, even though nearly every visitor is on a mobile.
- Opening hours hidden away inside a PDF.
- Patient details gathered through an insecure form with no privacy policy.
- An expired domain, which takes the website and the email down at the same moment.
Where to go from here
Do you run a clinic, hospital, laboratory, nursing home or dental practice in Kenya? Our hosting page for health facilities explains what is included, what falls outside our service, and which plan most clinics pick. Moving from your current host costs nothing, and we handle the move for you.