Dataset Information

Italian hospitals on the web: a cross-sectional analysis of official websites.

ABSTRACT: BACKGROUND: Although the use of the Internet for health purposes has increased steadily in the last decade, only a few studies have explored the information provided by the websites of health institutions and no studies on the on-line activities of Italian hospitals have been performed to date. The aim of this study was to explore the characteristics of the contents and the user-orientation of Italian hospital websites. METHODS: The cross-sectional analysis considered all the Italian hospitals with a working website between December 2008 and February 2009. The websites were coded using an ad hoc Codebook, comprising eighty-nine items divided into five sections: technical characteristics, hospital information and facilities, medical services, interactive on-line services and external activities. We calculated a website evaluation score, on the basis of the items satisfied, to compare private (PrHs) and public hospitals, the latter divided into ones with their own website (PubHs-1) and ones with a section on the website of their Local Health Authority (PubHs-2). Lastly, a descriptive analysis of each item was carried out. RESULTS: Out of the 1265 hospitals in Italy, we found that 419 of the 652 public hospitals (64.3%) and 344 of the 613 PrHs (56.1%) had a working website (p = 0.01). The mean website evaluation score was 41.9 for PubHs-1, 21.2 for PubHs-2 and 30.8 for PrHs (p < 0.001).Only 5 hospitals out of 763 (< 1%) provided specific clinical performance indicators, such as the nosocomial infection rate or the surgical mortality rates. Regarding interactive on-line services, although nearly 80% of both public and private hospitals enabled users to communicate on-line, less than 18% allowed the reservation of medical services, and only 8 websites (1%) provided a health-care forum. CONCLUSIONS: A high percentage of hospitals did not provide an official website and the majority of the websites found had several limitations. Very few hospitals provided information to increase the credibility of the hospital and user confidence in the institution. This study suggests that Italian hospital websites are more a source of information on admissions and services than a means of communication between user and hospital.

SUBMITTER: Maifredi G

PROVIDER: S-EPMC2868065 | biostudies-other | 2010

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-other

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Italian hospitals on the web: a cross-sectional analysis of official websites.

Maifredi Giovanni G Orizio Grazia G Bressanelli Maura M Domenighini Serena S Gasparotti Cinzia C Perini Eleonora E Caimi Luigi L Schulz Peter J PJ Gelatti Umberto U

BMC medical informatics and decision making 20100401

<h4>Background</h4>Although the use of the Internet for health purposes has increased steadily in the last decade, only a few studies have explored the information provided by the websites of health institutions and no studies on the on-line activities of Italian hospitals have been performed to date. The aim of this study was to explore the characteristics of the contents and the user-orientation of Italian hospital websites.<h4>Methods</h4>The cross-sectional analysis considered all the Italia ...[more]

PMID: 20359366

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Project description:BackgroundMany people use the internet to access health care information to support health care decisions, and hospital websites can be the first point of contact to provide health care information services for consumers. However, little is known about the current information services provided by the websites of large Chinese hospitals.ObjectiveThe aim of this study is to evaluate and compare the information services of the websites of large hospitals in China and the United States. We hope that our findings will benefit hospital managers worldwide in providing service information on the web.MethodsThis study adopted a cross-sectional analytical approach to evaluate the websites of large hospitals in China and the United States in 2020. A total of 300 large hospitals were randomly selected, of which half were in China and half were in the United States. Based on the 7Ps marketing mix, we identified 39 items that represent typical hospital website information services, covering the following seven dimensions: product, price, place, propagation, people, process, and physical evidence.ResultsMost of the items (34/39, 87%) related to information services offered by hospital websites were less covered in China than in the United States; however, 5 items (appointments by a third-party platform, mobile payment, hospital value, hospital environment display, and physicians' profiles) had higher coverage in China. The average scores for hospital websites in China and the United States were 13.25 (SD 2.99) points and 23.16 (SD 2.76) points, respectively. Generally, high scores were given to the south areas of China and north areas of the United States.ConclusionsHospital websites in China lagged behind those in the United States with regard to information services offered. We recommend that hospital managers in China place more emphasis on the people, product, and propagation dimensions of the 7Ps marketing mix in the construction of information services on hospital websites. Through the comparison of the websites of large hospitals in China and the United States, our study findings can provide suggestions for forming standard hospital website construction guidelines worldwide.

Project description:The Internet hospital, an innovative approach to providing health care, is rapidly developing in China because it has the potential to provide widely accessible outpatient service delivery via Internet technologies. To date, China's Internet hospitals have not been systematically investigated.The aim of this study was to describe the characteristics of China's Internet hospitals, and to assess their health service capacity.We searched Baidu, the popular Chinese search engine, to identify Internet hospitals, using search terms such as "Internet hospital," "web hospital," or "cloud hospital." All Internet hospitals in mainland China were eligible for inclusion if they were officially registered. Our search was carried out until March 31, 2017.We identified 68 Internet hospitals, of which 43 have been put into use and 25 were under construction. Of the 43 established Internet hospitals, 13 (30%) were in the hospital informatization stage, 24 (56%) were in the Web ward stage, and 6 (14%) were in full Internet hospital stage. Patients accessed outpatient service delivery via website (74%, 32/43), app (42%, 18/43), or offline medical consultation facility (37%, 16/43) from the Internet hospital. Furthermore, 25 (58%) of the Internet hospitals asked doctors to deliver health services at a specific Web clinic, whereas 18 (42%) did not. The consulting methods included video chat (60%, 26/43), telephone (19%, 8/43), and graphic message (28%, 12/43); 13 (30%) Internet hospitals cannot be consulted online any more. Only 6 Internet hospitals were included in the coverage of health insurance. The median number of doctors available online was zero (interquartile range [IQR] 0 to 5; max 16,492). The median consultation fee per time was ¥20 (approximately US $2.90, IQR ¥0 to ¥200).Internet hospitals provide convenient outpatient service delivery. However, many of the Internet hospitals are not yet mature and are faced with various issues such as online doctor scarcity and the unavailability of health insurance coverage. China's Internet hospitals are heading in the right direction to improve provision of health services, but much more remains to be done.

Project description:OBJECTIVES:To determine the appropriateness of medical imaging examinations involving radiation and to estimate the effective radiation dose and costs associated. DESIGN:Cross-sectional retrospective study. SETTING:Two Spanish public tertiary hospitals. PARTICIPANTS:2022 medical imaging tests were extracted from the radiology information system in February and March of 2014. MRI and ultrasound examinations were excluded. PRIMARY AND SECONDARY OUTCOME MEASURES:Five outcomes were set independently by at least two researchers according to four guidelines: (1) appropriate; (2) inappropriate; (3) inappropriate due to repetition, if the timing to carry out next diagnostic tests was incorrect according to guidelines; (4) not adequately justified, if the referral form did not include enough clinical information to allow us to understand the patient's clinical condition; and (5) not included in the guidelines, if the referral could not be matched to a clinical scenario described in the guidelines. We estimated the prevalence of the five categories according to relevant clinical and sociodemographic variables and the effective radiation dose and costs for each category. RESULTS:Approximately half of the imaging tests were deemed as appropriate (967, 47.8%) while one-third (634, 31.4%) were considered inappropriate. 19.6% of the effective dose and 25.2% of the cost were associated with inappropriate tests. Women were less likely than men to have an imaging test classified as appropriate (adjusted OR 0.70,95%?CI 0.57 to 0.86). Imaging tests requested by general practitioners were less likely to be considered appropriate than those requested by central services (adjusted OR 0.60, 95%?CI 0.38 to 0.93). Mammography and CT were more likely to be appropriate than conventional X-rays. CONCLUSION:There was a significant frequency of inappropriateness, which resulted in a high percentage of associated effective radiation dose. Percentage of inappropriateness depends on sociodemographic and clinical characteristics such as sex, age, referral physician and medical imaging test.

Project description:BackgroundPeople use the internet as a primary source for learning about medical procedures and their associated safety profiles and risks. Although abortion is one of the most common procedures worldwide among women in their reproductive years, it is controversial and highly politicized. Substantial scientific evidence demonstrates that abortion is safe and does not increase a woman's future risk for depressive disorders or infertility. The extent to which information found on the internet reflects these medical facts in a trustworthy and unbiased manner is not known.ObjectiveThe purpose of this study was to collate and describe the trustworthiness and political slant or bias of web-based information about abortion safety and risks of depression and infertility following abortion.MethodsWe performed a cross-sectional study of internet websites using 3 search topics: (1) is abortion safe?, (2) does abortion cause depression?, and (3) does abortion cause infertility? We used the Google Adwords tool to identify the search terms most associated with those topics and Google's search engine to generate databases of websites related to each topic. We then classified and rated each website in terms of content slant (pro-choice, neutral, anti-choice), clarity of slant (obvious, in-between, or difficult/can't tell), trustworthiness (rating scale of 1-5, 5=most trustworthy), type (forum, feature, scholarly article, resource page, news article, blog, or video), and top-level domain (.com, .net, .org, .edu, .gov, or international domain). We compared website characteristics by search topic (safety, depression, or infertility) using bivariate tests. We summarized trustworthiness using the median and IQR, and we used box-and-whisker plots to visually compare trustworthiness by slant and domain type.ResultsOur search methods yielded a total of 111, 120, and 85 unique sites for safety, depression, and infertility, respectively. Of all the sites (n=316), 57.3% (181/316) were neutral, 35.4% (112/316) were anti-choice, and 7.3% (23/316) were pro-choice. The median trustworthiness score was 2.7 (IQR 1.7-3.7), which did not differ significantly across topics (P=.409). Anti-choice sites were less trustworthy (median score 1.3, IQR 1.0-1.7) than neutral (median score 3.3, IQR 2.7-4.0) and pro-choice (median score 3.7, IQR 3.3-4.3) sites. Anti-choice sites were also more likely to have slant clarity that was "difficult to tell" (41/112, 36.6%) compared with neutral (25/181, 13.8%) or pro-choice (4/23, 17.4%; P<.001) sites. A negative search term used for the topic of safety (eg, "risks") produced sites with lower trustworthiness scores than search terms with the word "safety" (median score 1.7 versus 3.7, respectively; P<.001).ConclusionsPeople seeking information about the safety and potential risks of abortion are likely to encounter a substantial amount of untrustworthy and slanted/biased abortion information. Anti-choice sites are prevalent, often difficult to identify as anti-choice, and less trustworthy than neutral or pro-choice sites. Web searches may lead the public to believe abortion is riskier than it is.

Project description:BACKGROUND:Patients diagnosed with melanoma frequently search the internet for treatment information, including novel and complex immunotherapy. However, health literacy is limited among half of the German population, and no assessment of websites on melanoma treatment has been performed so far. OBJECTIVE:The aim of this study was to identify and assess the most visible websites in German language on melanoma immunotherapy. METHODS:In accordance with the common Web-based information-seeking behavior of patients with cancer, the first 20 hits on Google, Yahoo, and Bing were searched for combinations of German synonyms for "melanoma" and "immunotherapy" in July 2017. Websites that met our predefined eligibility criteria were considered for assessment. Three reviewers independently assessed their quality by using the established DISCERN tool and by checking the presence of quality certification. Usability and reliability were evaluated by the LIDA tool and understandability by the Patient Education Materials Assessment Tool (PEMAT). The Flesch Reading Ease Score (FRES) was calculated to estimate the readability. The ALEXA and SISTRIX tools were used to investigate the websites' popularity and visibility. The interrater agreement was determined by calculating Cronbach alpha. Subgroup differences were identified by t test, U test, or one-way analysis of variance. RESULTS:Of 480 hits, 45 single websites from 30 domains were assessed. Only 2 website domains displayed a German quality certification. The average assessment scores, mean (SD), were as follows: DISCERN, 48 (7.6); LIDA (usability), 40 (2.0); LIDA (reliability), 10 (1.6); PEMAT, 69% (16%); and FRES, 17 (14), indicating mediocre quality, good usability, and understandability but low reliability and an even very low readability of the included individual websites. SISTRIX scores ranged from 0 to 6872 and ALEXA scores ranged from 17 to 192,675, indicating heterogeneity of the visibility and popularity of German website domains providing information on melanoma immunotherapy. CONCLUSIONS:Optimization of the most accessible German websites on melanoma immunotherapy is desirable. Especially, simplification of the readability of information and further adaption to reliability criteria are required to support the education of patients with melanoma and laypersons, and to enhance transparency.

Project description:BackgroundMost patients use the internet to search for health information. While there is a vast repository of searchable information online, much of the content is unregulated and therefore potentially incorrect, conflicting, or confusing. Abortion information online is particularly prone to being inaccurate as antichoice websites publish purposefully misleading information in formats that appear as neutral resources. To understand how antichoice websites appear neutral, we need to understand the specific website features of antichoice websites that impart an impression of trustworthiness.ObjectiveWe sought to identify the characteristics of false or misleading abortion websites that make these websites appear trustworthy to the public.MethodsWe conducted a cross-sectional study using Amazon's Mechanical Turk platform. We used validated questionnaires to ask participants to rate 11 antichoice websites and one neutral website identified by experts, focusing on website content, creators, and design. We collected sociodemographic data and participant views on abortion. We used a composite measure of "mean overall trust" as our primary outcome. Using correlation matrices, we determined which website characteristics were most associated with mean overall trust. Finally, we used linear regression to identify participant characteristics associated with overall trust.ResultsOur analytic sample included 498 participants aged from 22 to 70 years, and 50.1% (247/493) identified as female. Across 11 antichoice websites, creator confidence ("I believe that the creators of this website are honest and trustworthy") had the highest correlation coefficient (strongest relationship) with mean overall trust (coefficient=0.70). Professional appearance (coefficient=0.59), look and feel (coefficient=0.59), perception that the information is created by experts (coefficient=0.59), association with a trustworthy organization (coefficient=0.58), valued features and functionalities (coefficient=0.54), and interactive capabilities (coefficient=0.52) all demonstrated strong relationships with mean overall trust. At the individual level, prochoice leaning was associated with higher overall trust of the neutral website (B=-0.43, 95% CI -0.87 to 0.01) and lower mean overall trust of the antichoice websites (B=0.52, 95% CI 0.05 to 0.99).ConclusionsThe mean overall trust of antichoice websites is most associated with design characteristics and perceived trustworthiness of website creators. Those who believe that access to abortion should be limited are more likely to have higher mean overall trust for antichoice websites.

Dataset Information

Italian hospitals on the web: a cross-sectional analysis of official websites.

Publications

Italian hospitals on the web: a cross-sectional analysis of official websites.

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