Developing Health Sector Website Assessment Instrument: Outcomes from Portuguese Hospitals

摘要

The Internet has become an important source of overall health information and seems to be a common source of information used by patients in the process of decision-making before choosing a health provider. Technology holds enormous potential for improving the operational and administrative efficiency of health sector institutions, improving services, optimizing processes, and building trust between hospitals, patients and other stakeholders. Consequently, there have been increasing calls for evaluating health institutions' websites, as they are widely considered to be the primary platform for interaction with patients. This study, therefore, seeks to contribute to existing knowledge by assessing 18 hospital websites from Portugal. This is particularly important as little is known about the provided services and use of health sector websites. This work applies a four-dimensional assessment tool (HSWAI). The four criteria for determining site development and effectiveness include; Content, Technology, Service and Participation. This study evidences that Portuguese health sector institutions' websites studied are generally effective and sufficient in essential information provision and they also have a modern technical implementation. However, most of the hospital websites reviewed showed deficiencies in most of the indicators related to service provision and patient engagement features.