Abstract
BackgroundChildren’s hospitals are faced with the rising need for technological innovation. Their prospective health care consumers, who increasingly depend on the Web and social media for communication and consumer engagement, drive this need. As patients and family members navigate the Web presence of hospitals, it is important for these specialized organizations to present themselves and their services efficiently.ObjectiveThe purpose of this study was to evaluate the website content of children’s hospitals in order to identify opportunities to improve website design and create benchmarks to judge improvement.MethodsAll websites associated with a children’s hospital were identified using a census list of all children’s hospitals in the United States. In March of 2014, each website and its social media were evaluated using a Web crawler that provided a 5-dimensional assessment that included website accessibility, marketing, content, technology, and usability. The 5-dimensional assessment was scored on a scale ranging from 0 to 10 with positive findings rated higher on the scale. Websites were ranked by individual dimensions as well as according to their average ranking across all dimensions.ResultsMean scores of 153 websites ranged from 5.05 to 8.23 across all 5 dimensions. Results revealed that no website scored a perfect 10 on any dimension and that room exists for meaningful improvement.ConclusionsStudy findings allow for the establishment of baseline benchmarks for tracking future website and social media improvements and display the need for enhanced Web-based consumer engagement for children’s hospitals.
Highlights
IntroductionPatients seek health-related information from Internet sources [1]
More and more, patients seek health-related information from Internet sources [1]
The trend is strong among teens and young adults, as these demographics show the highest rate of Internet usage both in general and for health information [2,3,4]
Summary
Patients seek health-related information from Internet sources [1]. The increased use of Web-based technology to seek health information provides opportunities for health care organizations to create innovative platforms to educate and engage their consumers. By virtue of the fact that children’s hospitals serve younger demographics, they may be well positioned to capitalize from an effective Web presence to attract new patients and provide high-fidelity information [6,7,8]. Children’s hospitals are faced with the rising need for technological innovation. Their prospective health care consumers, who increasingly depend on the Web and social media for communication and consumer engagement, drive this need. As patients and family members navigate the Web presence of hospitals, it is important for these specialized organizations to present themselves and their services efficiently
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