A comparison of websites from Spanish, American and British hospitals

To evaluate and compare the user-orientation of Spanish, American and British hospital websites. A descriptive study of 32 hospital portals (12 Spanish, 10 American and 10 British) was carried out in which the following were analyzed: website readability according to the Flesch Index, websites acces...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inMethods of information in medicine Vol. 47; no. 2; p. 124
Main Authors Llinás, G, Rodríguez-Iñesta, D, Mira, J J, Lorenzo, S, Aibar, C
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Germany 01.01.2008
Subjects
Health Services Accessibility
Hospitals
Humans
Information Services
Information Storage and Retrieval
Internet
Quality of Health Care
Spain
United Kingdom
United States
User-Computer Interface
Online AccessGet more information

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Summary:To evaluate and compare the user-orientation of Spanish, American and British hospital websites. A descriptive study of 32 hospital portals (12 Spanish, 10 American and 10 British) was carried out in which the following were analyzed: website readability according to the Flesch Index, websites accessibility using the Web Accessibility Test, and the quality of information provided using the "e-Information Scale of Health Care Centers". Fifty percent of the user-oriented information quality attributes are met. Readability indices tend to be below 60 (standard readability), and only 10 of the 32 websites meet the accessibility criteria. Most portals exhibit accessibility problems that favor computer illiteracy. There is a wide variability in terms of website readability and in terms of user-oriented content.
ISSN:0026-1270
DOI:10.3414/ME0474