Quality of websites in Spanish public hospitals

Abstract

The objectives were to assess the quality of websites in Spanish public hospitals by means of a validated system, also including measures of readability and accessibility. A scale was designed and validated to assess the quality (citizen-orientated) of the websites of hospitals. The quality of the of public hospital websites was evaluated by means of the results of the above evaluation scale, analysis of the readability of their contents, and the results of the accessibility test. The validated scale contains 73 elements or attributes. Analysis of the concordance of website evaluations shows average assessment values of between 0.80 and 0.81, which confirms a high degree of agreement among jurors. Twenty per cent of the attributes do not appear on any websites, and 14% are present on all of them. The average mark of the hospitals is 43%. The marks given for readability of tests show that it is satisfactory for 64% hospitals. None of the websites visited fulfilled the requirements necessary to be considered as accessible. The quality of the websites analysed by means of this scale varies from 23% to 62%. Differences in the size or location of the hospitals do not explain this high level of variability. The results suggest that the readability of websites should be improved and that such sites should be accessible to people with disabilities.

Keywords:

• Internet
• hospital websites
• quality
• readability
• accesibility

Acknowledgements

This research was financed by Escuela Valenciana de Estudios para la Salud (EVES) projects I + D of 2004. Reference: PI-074/2004.