The McMaster Optimal Aging Portal: Usability Evaluation of a Unique Evidence-Based Health Information Website

Barbara, Angela M.; Dobbins, Maureen; Iorio, Alfonso; Lavis, John N.; Raina, Parminder; Levinson, Anthony J

doi:10.2196/humanfactors.4800

Cited by 32 publications

(37 citation statements)

References 79 publications

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“…These include portals for patients with diabetes,25–31 COPD,32 asthma,33 breast cancer,34 attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder,35 and schizophrenia 36. Web portals have also been developed to meet the needs of particular patient populations, including pediatric patients and their guardians,35,37,38 maternity patients,39 patients receiving in vitro fertilization,40 and older adults 41. The wide variability in web portals for specific disease and patient populations, including the specific features that they offer, the outcomes evaluated, and whether the information technology resources were combined with a case management intervention, increases the difficulty of making general statements about their usefulness for disease management or alleviating symptoms.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Patient web portals, disease management, and primary prevention

Coughlin¹,

Prochaska²,

Williams³

et al. 2017

RMHP

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BackgroundEfforts aimed at health care reform and continued advances in information technologies have prompted interest among providers and researchers in patient web portals. Patient web portals are password-protected online websites that offer the patients 24-hour access to personal health information from anywhere with an Internet connection.MethodsThis article, which is based upon bibliographic searches in PubMed, reviews important developments in web portals for primary and secondary disease prevention, including patient web portals tethered to electronic medical records, disease-specific portals, health disparities, and health-related community web portals.ResultsAlthough findings have not been uniformly positive, several studies of the effectiveness of health care system patient portals in chronic disease management have shown promising results with regard to patient outcomes. Patient web portals have also shown promising results in increasing adherence with screening recommendations. Racial and ethnic minorities, younger persons, and patients who are less educated or have lower health literacy have been found to be less likely to use patient portals.ConclusionAdditional studies are needed of the utility and effectiveness of different elements of web portals for different patient populations. This should include additional diseases and health topics such as smoking cessation and weight management.

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Patient web portals, disease management, and primary prevention

Coughlin¹,

Prochaska²,

Williams³

et al. 2017

RMHP

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“…More work by Lavis et al () focused on developing a taxonomy of health system topics for categorising the content for a ‘one‐stop shop’ for global research evidence about health systems. Further, Barbara et al, evaluated the McMaster Optimal AgingPortal, a local one‐stop shop in Canada for evidence‐based health information to inform designers of health information online resources for older adults about key usability themes. In the Ugandan context, the findings of this study can inform efforts to improve the usability of the clearinghouse.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Evaluating user experiences of a clearing house for health policy and systems

Mutatina

Basaza

Sewankambo

et al. 2019

Health Info Libraries J

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Background Timely access to evidence increases the prospects for evidence informed decision making. We evaluated user experiences of a Clearing House for Health Policy with the aim of increasing access to evidence about the Uganda health system and interventions. Methods We conducted in‐depth interviews with 15 potential users including policymakers, health policy advisors, health managers and researchers to provide evidence on their experience with the clearinghouse. On average participants took 20 minutes to first navigate the site and 45 minutes to perform search tasks and complete the interview. Results Most respondents successfully searched for information with accuracy and completeness in a short time. Participants commended the performance and expressed high regard for the credibility of the clearinghouse. The majority felt that using the resource was worth their effort. The clearinghouse provided appropriate functionalities for information searching. Navigating and finding information from the site was achievable. However, inadequate background information about the site and lack of current information were widely reported. Conclusion Our paper provides insights on the issues that can be addressed to improve online resources for health policy and system information in a limited resource setting. Users’ experience of such resources can be improved by regularly appraising and appropriately indexing the contents, and optimising the capacity to customise information.

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“…Internet is searched increasingly to find health-related information by older adults and their caretakers but the information is not accurate every time [2]. A web portal was designed and evaluated for usability in order to address the requirements of older adults.…”

Section: Related Workmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…More people search the internet for health information [2], [3]. A healthcare website can play a vital role in improving user satisfaction [4].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

A Comparison of Usability Aspects between an Existing Hospital Website of Pakistan with a Template based on Usability Standards

Ashraf¹,

Tahir²

2018

ijacsa

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Abstract-More people search internet for medical and health information. Due to increase in demand for online health services, hospitals need to equip their websites with usability standards. Hospital websites should be user centered in order to increase the usability. In the instant research study, an existing public sector hospital website is compared with a designed template for healthcare website. Template was designed keeping in view the user demands for hospital websites. Usability evaluation of both websites has been performed. Twenty-one users were involved in the research study. Three representative tasks were performed by each user on each website and a questionnaire was presented afterwards to collect user opinion about the websites under evaluation. Average score was calculated against both websites for each usability component. 75% users responded positively to designed website template comparing with existing hospital website which got 33% positive responses only. Hence, it was evident that the designed template had better response for usability. The findings of this study justify the literature that user centered design can significantly improve usability of websites. This study is a step towards research which intends to understand usability problems and propose design rules for designing hospital websites of Pakistan in line with usability standards.

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The McMaster Optimal Aging Portal: Usability Evaluation of a Unique Evidence-Based Health Information Website

Cited by 32 publications

References 79 publications

Patient web portals, disease management, and primary prevention

Patient web portals, disease management, and primary prevention

Evaluating user experiences of a clearing house for health policy and systems

A Comparison of Usability Aspects between an Existing Hospital Website of Pakistan with a Template based on Usability Standards

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