Dataset Information

Health care public reporting utilization - user clusters, web trails, and usage barriers on Germany's public reporting portal Weisse-Liste.de.

ABSTRACT: Quality of care public reporting provides structural, process and outcome information to facilitate hospital choice and strengthen quality competition. Yet, evidence indicates that patients rarely use this information in their decision-making, due to limited awareness of the data and complex and conflicting information. While there is enthusiasm among policy makers for public reporting, clinicians and researchers doubt its overall impact. Almost no study has analyzed how users behave on public reporting portals, which information they seek out and when they abort their search.This study employs web-usage mining techniques on server log data of 17 million user actions from Germany's premier provider transparency portal Weisse-Liste.de (WL.de) between 2012 and 2015. Postal code and ICD search requests facilitate identification of geographical and treatment area usage patterns. User clustering helps to identify user types based on parameters like session length, referrer and page topic visited. First-level markov chains illustrate common click paths and premature exits.In 2015, the WL.de Hospital Search portal had 2,750 daily users, with 25% mobile traffic, a bounce rate of 38% and 48% of users examining hospital quality information. From 2013 to 2015, user traffic grew at 38% annually. On average users spent 7 min on the portal, with 7.4 clicks and 54 s between clicks. Users request information for many oncologic and orthopedic conditions, for which no process or outcome quality indicators are available. Ten distinct user types, with particular usage patterns and interests, are identified. In particular, the different types of professional and non-professional users need to be addressed differently to avoid high premature exit rates at several key steps in the information search and view process. Of all users, 37% enter hospital information correctly upon entry, while 47% require support in their hospital search.Several onsite and offsite improvement options are identified. Public reporting needs to be directed at the interests of its users, with more outcome quality information for oncology and orthopedics. Customized reporting can cater to the different needs and skill levels of professional and non-professional users. Search engine optimization and hospital quality advocacy can increase website traffic.

SUBMITTER: Pross C

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5399803 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Health care public reporting utilization - user clusters, web trails, and usage barriers on Germany's public reporting portal Weisse-Liste.de.

Pross Christoph C Averdunk Lars-Henrik LH Stjepanovic Josip J Busse Reinhard R Geissler Alexander A

BMC medical informatics and decision making 20170421 1

<h4>Background</h4>Quality of care public reporting provides structural, process and outcome information to facilitate hospital choice and strengthen quality competition. Yet, evidence indicates that patients rarely use this information in their decision-making, due to limited awareness of the data and complex and conflicting information. While there is enthusiasm among policy makers for public reporting, clinicians and researchers doubt its overall impact. Almost no study has analyzed how users ...[more]

PMID: 28431546

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Project description:Background:Web portals providing health information online have the potential to reach large numbers of people. Yet few studies have assessed usage and costs of health portals, especially over an extended period of time. Objectives:First, to assess the usage of a web portal on prevention and health promotion that was initiated by the German states of Berlin and Brandenburg. Second, to estimate average cost per pageview over the full web portal life-cycle. Methods:Usage data were gathered through Google Analytics. The main usage metric assessed was pageviews originating from an IP address in Berlin or Brandenburg. Project cost data were reported by the local government and from own records. Descriptive and regression analyses were used to determine time trends in pageviews. Results:The redesigned web portal Praeventionsatlas.de launched August 2011 and was discontinued March 2018. Analyzing the full calendar years only, the annual pageview number increased from 2012 (8492) to its peak in 2014 (11,876) and steadily decreased to its minimum in 2017 (7232). Pages of the web portal were most often viewed around lunchtime (12 to 1 p.m.), in the middle of the week (Wed to Thu), and at the beginning of the year (Jan to Feb). Adjusting for year, month, and weekday, the number of daily pageviews dropped on major public holidays (Easter -9, Pentecost -12, Christmas -12 and New Year's Eve and Day -20; p?<?.001) and increased during the fasting period before Easter (+6; p?<?.001). Average cost per page viewed from relaunch until the web portal went offline was estimated to be €0.38 (€0.33 to €1.67) per pageview. Conclusion:Usage of the web portal showed temporal variation and peaked before the middle of its 6.5 year life-cycle. Development and need for updates may require substantial investment in a web portal, such that a pageview can come at a considerable expense, even in small-scale projects. Assessing and discussing the cost-effectiveness of a web portal is therefore desirable.

Dataset Information

Health care public reporting utilization - user clusters, web trails, and usage barriers on Germany's public reporting portal Weisse-Liste.de.

Publications

Health care public reporting utilization - user clusters, web trails, and usage barriers on Germany's public reporting portal Weisse-Liste.de.

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