A patient education community is a library with a front desk. People arrive after a diagnosis, a test result or a long wait for an appointment, and they need two things: material they can rely on, and somewhere to ask what they did not think to ask in the room. This guide is for the organisation that provides both. That could be a clinic, a charity, a patient association, a hospital education team or a group of practitioners who teach.
It is a setup guide for the website, not clinical guidance. Nothing here tells you what to put in a lesson, and nothing on your site should be written by anyone who is not accountable for it. Clinical content should come from qualified professionals, and members should be told to consult a qualified professional about their own situation. None of the plugins mentioned below verifies anyone’s credentials, and none of them makes a site compliant with health-privacy law. If you handle personal health information, get advice from someone qualified in the rules that apply where you operate before you collect any of it.
The build uses Learnomy for courses, Jetonomy for question and answer boards, and BuddyNext for the member community. Free and Pro scope is labelled as we go.
Three zones, three sets of rules
The most common mistake in a health community is putting everything in one feed. A lesson written by a nurse educator, a question from a worried parent and a member’s account of what worked for them all end up looking the same. Readers cannot tell which is which, and that is where harm starts.
Split the site into three zones, and give each its own author rules.
| Zone | Purpose | Who writes | Who replies | Tool |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Learn | Condition courses and fact sheets | Your clinicians or education team | Nobody; comments are off | Learnomy |
| Ask | Questions answered by named staff | Members ask | Staff only | Jetonomy Q&A space |
| Talk | Peer conversation, moderated | Members | Members | BuddyNext private spaces |
Everything that follows is a way of enforcing that table. If a member can reply in the Ask zone, you have created a second Talk zone with an expert-looking label on it. If a clinician posts casually in Talk, a chat becomes a recommendation.
Build the courses before anything else
Start with Learn, because it is the part members will return to and the part you control completely. Organise courses around the questions people actually ask, in the order they ask them, rather than around your departments.
Lesson formats
Learnomy lets each lesson use a different content type. All of these are in the free plugin.
| Lesson type | A fit for |
|---|---|
| Text | Plain-language explanations and checklists |
| Video or Embed | A recorded talk from a clinician, played in a responsive frame |
| Audio | People who would rather listen than read a screen |
| A printable fact sheet shown inline, with an open-in-new-tab fallback | |
| Download | A worksheet or booklet as a single file |
One detail matters here. A file you upload to your own site is protected automatically: Learnomy moves it out of the public uploads folder and serves it through a link that checks the viewer first. A video you only link to from YouTube or Vimeo is not protected, because Learnomy cannot control access to something it does not store. If a resource must be limited to enrolled members, upload it to your site.
Who gets in
The pricing and access model on each course decides how people reach it.
- Free: any signed-in member enrols with one click. Suits general information.
- Invite only: nobody can enrol themselves, and you add people one at a time or by CSV. Suits a programme for people already under your service.
- Members only or paid: access through a membership plan or a one-time price. Learnomy’s free plugin handles Stripe and PayPal checkout, memberships and coupons.
Completion, certificates and review dates
Pick a completion rule for each course. The options are all lessons completed, lessons plus a passing quiz, a percentage of content, or manual completion. A short quiz can confirm that someone has seen the practical points, such as how to reach the clinic. It is a check on the material, not an assessment of the person.
Think twice before issuing certificates. A certificate records that a course was completed. For a patient audience it can read as an endorsement of something, so leave the option off unless there is a reason to have it.
Put a “last reviewed” line and the name of the reviewing role at the top of every lesson. That is content governance, not clinical advice: it tells readers the page has an owner and a date, and it tells your team when a page is due for a second look.
If you want a course released in stages, Learnomy’s free plugin has an Available date on every lesson. A per-student countdown after enrolment is a Pro feature (drip), and it must be switched on under LMS Settings, Modules first.
Turn lesson comments off
Learnomy has a site-wide switch for lesson comments, which individual courses and lessons can override. For clinical lessons, leave comments off. A comment thread under a lesson is an unmoderated Talk zone attached to the Learn zone, and the question belongs in the Ask zone, where a named person can answer it properly.
Ask a professional, with a name on the answer
The Ask zone is a Jetonomy space with the Q&A type. Every post is a question, replies are answers, and the person who asked (or a moderator) can mark one reply as accepted. Everything below is in Jetonomy’s free plugin unless noted.
Lock the replies to staff
In the space settings, set Who can reply to Moderators and Admins, and leave Who can post open to members. Members ask; only your staff answer. Jetonomy’s own docs describe this setup as a read-heavy Q&A space where only trusted people contribute.
Two things to understand about the mechanics. First, an accepted answer is a marker that the asker or a moderator picks. It is not a check that the answer is correct, so do not describe it to members as a verified answer. Second, voting stays available on replies in a Q&A space, so a staff answer will show a vote count. Decide whether that matters to you and say what it means in your house rules.
Questions that should not be public
Every signed-in member sees a Private checkbox in the composer. A private topic is visible only to its author and the space’s moderators; other members cannot find it through the listing, search or its address. This suits questions that include personal circumstances.
Be honest in the interface about what private topics are. They are not a clinical channel and they are not monitored around the clock. Add a pinned topic at the top of the space, written by your clinical lead, that says what the space is for, how quickly staff usually reply, and that urgent matters go to your service or to local emergency services.
Hold posts until a moderator has looked
Turn on Require Post Approval for the space. Every new post from a non-moderator waits for a moderator to approve it, and the author is told whether it was approved or rejected. For a health space this has a practical use: it gives you a chance to catch a name, a phone number or a full address before it is published. You can turn it off later once you trust the membership.
Jetonomy Pro adds anonymous posting, where members see “Anonymous” and only a site administrator can reveal the author, with each reveal logged. That can help people ask about things they find embarrassing. It also means your administrators can see who wrote a post, so say that in your terms.
Labels that describe what you decided
A badge next to a name is useful for telling staff replies apart from everything else. BuddyNext Pro has member labels you define and assign yourself, such as Staff or Clinician, and Jetonomy Pro has custom badges. A label states what you decided and nothing more; it does not check a qualification. Keep a private record of who holds each label and why.
For more on choosing the right board format, see the guide to forum, Q&A or ideas board.
Peer conversation that stays within bounds
Many people find the most useful thing about a condition community is another person who has been through it. The Talk zone exists for that, and it should be separate from anything that looks like authority.
Private spaces with a door
In BuddyNext, a space is Open, Private or Secret. For peer talk, Private is usually right: the space is listed so people can find it, a join click becomes a request that an owner or moderator approves, and the feed stays locked until then. A visitor can still open the About tab to read the description, the house rules and who the moderators are before asking to join. That makes the rules visible at the moment someone decides.
Secret spaces are not listed anywhere and are reachable only by invitation, which suits a small support group run by a clinic.
Put the rules in writing
Write house rules that members see before they join and again when they post. Guidelines of this kind commonly include:
| Topic | A sensible rule |
|---|---|
| Treatment suggestions | Members share their own experience, and do not tell others what to take or stop |
| Other people’s details | No names, photos or messages from anyone who has not agreed |
| Products and services | No selling, no affiliate links |
| Emergencies | Tell the person to contact local emergency services or their care team |
| Staff | Staff posts are marked and appear in the Ask zone |
The community guidelines template is a starting point for the wording. Have a qualified person review it before launch.
Moderation tools in the free plugin
These are in BuddyNext free:
- A report button on posts, comments, direct messages, media and profiles, feeding one moderation queue with Dismiss and Remove on every row.
- Content safeguards that act at the moment of posting: banned words (site-wide or per space), blocked link domains, a post rate limit, and a new-member gate that publishes a first post but flags it for review.
- Content warnings that a moderator can apply to a post, which blur it behind a label until the viewer chooses to reveal it.
- A ladder of warnings, strikes and suspensions, with an appeals path for suspended members, so a first slip is not treated like a repeat offence.
- Per-space bans, so a problem in one space does not need a site-wide action.
Reported direct messages are handled with privacy in mind: a moderator can act on the report without reading the private exchange. Direct messages themselves run through WPMediaVerse, which must be installed with Messages on.
For a deeper look at running a moderation team, read the community moderation guide.
Keep health details out of the system
The safest data is data you never collect. A few choices make a real difference.
Registration and profiles. Ask for as little as you can. Do not create profile fields for diagnosis, medication or treatment. Members can still share what they wish in a space they have chosen to join.
Search engines. BuddyNext has a setting for whether search engines may index the community. Jetonomy excludes posts in private and hidden spaces from search results, tag pages and trending lists. Decide what you want to be findable and check it while logged out.
The course feed. This one is easy to miss. With BuddyNext Pro active, Learnomy integration can post a “completed a course” item to the community feed, show completed courses as Certifications on a profile, and add a Learning tab. For a condition-specific course, that tells other members what someone has been studying. On the Learnomy card under BuddyNext, Integration Settings, switch off Post to the activity feed, and switch off the profile panels you do not want.
Gamification. Points, levels and leaderboards add little here and can create odd comparisons around a health topic. Leave them out of this site.
Export and deletion. BuddyNext lets members download their data or delete their account, and the owner can turn those controls on or off. Leave them on. They do not by themselves make you compliant with anything, so treat them as one useful control among many.
Tie courses and conversation together
Once the three zones work separately, link them so members move between them without losing the thread.
With BuddyNext Pro, a Learnomy course can be linked to a private BuddyNext space. When someone enrols, they are added to the space; when their access ends, they are removed. If you let BuddyNext create the space, Learnomy enrolment becomes its exclusive roster. This suits a cohort of people taking the same programme, who can talk to each other without opening a large public room.
With Jetonomy Pro, enrolment in a Learnomy course or an active Learnomy membership can grant access to a matching Jetonomy space, and the access is withdrawn when the enrolment ends.
Neither link is required. A small site can run all three zones by hand and add the automation later.
Which plan covers which part
| You want | Plan |
|---|---|
| Courses with text, video, audio, PDF and download lessons; quizzes; certificates; checkout and memberships | Learnomy free |
| A per-student drip countdown after enrolment | Learnomy Pro |
| Q&A space with accepted answers, private topics, post approval, moderation queue, private spaces | Jetonomy free |
| Anonymous posting; private messaging; custom badges | Jetonomy Pro |
| Spaces, profiles, reports, safeguards, strikes, appeals, content warnings | BuddyNext free |
| Course feed items and profile panels; linking a course to a space; member labels | BuddyNext Pro |
The free and Pro comparison lists every plugin side by side.
A short launch checklist
- Write the scope statement and have a qualified person review it.
- Name the staff who will answer questions, and agree how quickly you aim to reply.
- Build one course end to end, with a review date on every lesson.
- Create the Ask space with replies locked to staff and post approval on.
- Create one private peer space with house rules in its About tab.
- Switch off the course feed items and any profile panel you do not want.
- Check what a logged-out visitor can see.
- Test the whole path as a new member on a phone.
Why the site should feel like one place
Reign is built to work with BuddyNext and every Wbcom plugin, so the whole site shares one design. A lesson, a Q&A board and a peer space look like parts of the same place, which matters when you are asking someone to trust you with a worry. See what Reign is, the course community build guide and the live demos.
If your community is peer-led rather than clinician-led, read the guide to peer support communities for mental health, which makes a different set of choices.
Frequently asked questions
Can members get medical advice from this community?
No. The site is built to provide education from your qualified staff and a place for peers to share experience. Members should consult a qualified professional about their own situation, and your pages should say so. Nothing in the plugins provides clinical advice.
Does using these plugins make my site compliant with health-privacy law?
No. None of Learnomy, Jetonomy or BuddyNext provides compliance with any health-privacy regulation. Rules vary by country and by what your organisation does. Get qualified advice before you collect personal health information.
Can I stop members replying to questions?
Yes. In a Jetonomy space, set Who can reply to Moderators and Admins. Members can still post questions, and only your staff can answer.
Are private topics the same as anonymous posts?
No. A private topic is hidden from other members, but moderators can see who wrote it. An anonymous post is visible to everyone, with the author’s name hidden from other members. Anonymous posting is a Jetonomy Pro feature.
How do I stop a completed course showing on a member’s profile?
With BuddyNext Pro, open the Learnomy card under Integration Settings. You can switch off the activity feed post and the profile panels individually.
Do I need Pro for any of this?
Not to start. Courses, a staff-only Q&A board, private spaces and the moderation tools are all in the free plugins. Pro adds drip scheduling, anonymous posting, member labels and the links between courses and spaces.