The Quality and Characteristics of Leading General Hospitals’ Websites in China

Abstract

This paper focuses on the evaluation of quality of hospital websites in China. Leading general hospitals' websites in China are increasingly used by the public, but research on the quality of these websites in China is few and far between. In this article, we conducted a cross-sectional descriptive infodemiology study to assess the quality and to describe the characteristics of these websites. Using a pre-defined objective criterion based on content, function, design, and management & usage, two well-trained reviewers independently reviewed and analyzed websites of 23 nationally prominent leading general hospitals of China from April to June 2009. Hospital election is on the basis of the best Chinese hospitals published by official and non-official sources combined with experts' experiences and the research purpose. Results show that websites of most hospitals showed a good performance in website content, showed a normal performance in website function and design, but showed a bad performance in website management & usage. As the public increasingly looks to hospital websites for information and services, leading general hospitals in China need to keep up with increasingly high standards and demands of health-care consumers.

Trends of infodemiology studies: a scoping review

“…All studies included in this review are original articles (100%). The results of this research indicate that the first studies, which were called infodemiology, were about the quality assessment of hospitals’ websites (Kind, Wheeler, Robinson & Cabana, ; Liu, Bao, Liu & Wang, ). The other contexts that stand in the form of infodemiology studies include describing and assessing the Internet resources of patients in a specific field, designing the information mining system on specific topics (Chen, Chai, Zhang & Wang, ) and studying the information seeking behaviour.…”

“…Although some contemporary studies address both the demand based and supply based approaches (Bragazzi, Dini, Toletone, Brigo & Durando, ; Bragazzi, Watad, et al., ; Brigo & Erro, ; Lampos, Yom‐Tov, Pebody & Cox, ; Nagar et al., ; Santos & Matos, ). The last group is categorised as ‘other studies’ in which no Web tools were used (Chen et al., ; Kim, Jung, Jung & Hur, ; Kind et al., ; Liu et al., ; Showghi & Williams, ).…”

“…Based on The United Nations’ country classification (United Nations, ), the findings indicated that 46 (82%) articles were related to developed countries, as shown in Table , while seven (12.5%) were related to developing countries (Chan, Ho & Lam, ; Chen et al., ; Kim et al., ; Liu et al., ; Ocampo, Chunara & Brownstein, ; Wang et al., ; Wong et al., ). Three demand based articles (5%) belong to Russia as a country in transition (Domnich et al., ; Zheluk, Quinn, Hercz & Gillespie, ; Zheluk, Quinn & Meylakhs, ).…”

Evaluating hospital websites in Kuwait to improve consumer engagement and access to health information: a cross-sectional analytical study

“…Very few websites provide information to increase credibility of hospital and user confidence in institution. Liu et al [ 58 ] China Public hospitals 23 2009 Most websites show good performance in content, a normal performance in function and design, but bad performance in website management & usage. Selig et al [ 59 ] Germany Burn centers 44 2010 Websites offer a good overview about institution’s online services via numerous multimedia-based elements.…”

From a Literature Review to a Conceptual Framework for Health Sector Websites’ Assessment

“…Gruca & Wakefield [20] evaluate the status of US hospital websites examining the following features: electronic documents, providing decision aids, linkages to partners, building trust via external verification, facilitating transactions, multiparty targeting, self-service information and discussion forums. The study conducted by Mira et al [21] on the readability and accessibility of Spanish hospital websites concludes that they need to be more patient oriented because the websites visited did not fulfil even half of the readability and accessibility attributes required by widely used standards. Mancini et al [22] found that the enforcement of accessibility regulations has helped to significantly improve hospital website accessibility in Italy.…”