Interactive e-health tools for patients on Chinese hospitals' websites

Abstract

This study has investigated how Chinese hospitals have embraced e-health as reflected in the adoption of interactive e-health tools on their websites. The literature review shows that this is the first serious study regarding the implementation of e-health in China. A content analysis was conducted based on a systematic probability sample drawn from a list of 19 084 Chinese hospitals. This study found 14 interactive e-health tools on Chinese hospital websites, but the average number of such tools used on these sites was only 3; specialized hospitals and plastic surgery hospitals outperformed general hospitals, and the San jia hospitals (top-ranked in the top-tier) and private hospitals were equal in implementing interactive e-health tools though, overall, private hospitals outperformed public hospitals. It is concluded that comprehensively implementing the 12 most important interactive e-health tools on Chinese hospital websites today will help the hospitals provide quality healthcare regardless of the hospital's institution type, ownership nature, and ranking and develop a systematic online marketing and communication strategy, and help patients more easily find the information about a hospital, access, and understand their medical records, and have a user-friendly patient education about their symptoms and medical procedures.

Keywords:

• Interactivity
• Hospitals
• E-health
• Websites

Acknowledgement

All authors of this study made equal amount of contribution to the completion of this study. The authors would like to thank Miss Stephanie Huang, a student from the Law Center of University of Houston, for proofreading the manuscript and providing valuable opinion for enhancing the manuscript.