Evaluating hospital websites in Kuwait to improve consumer engagement and access to health information: a cross-sectional analytical study

Abstract

BackgroundCurrent advances in information and communication technology have made accessing and obtaining health-related information easier than ever before. Today, many hospital websites use a patient-centric approach to promote engagement and encourage learning for better health-related decision making. However, little is known about the current state of hospital websites in the State of Kuwait. This study aims to evaluate hospital websites in Kuwait and offer recommendations to improve patient engagement and access to health information.MethodsThis study employs a cross-sectional analytical approach to evaluate hospital websites in Kuwait in 2017. The websites of hospitals that provide in-patient services were identified through a structured search. Only active websites that were available in either English or Arabic were considered. The evaluation of the websites involved a combination of automated and expert- based evaluation methods and was performed across four dimensions: Accessibility, Usability, Presence, and Content.ResultsNine hospitals met the inclusion criteria. Most of the websites fell short in all four dimensions. None of the websites passed the accessibility guidelines. The usability of websites varied between hospitals. Overall, the majority of hospitals in Kuwait have rudimentary online presence and their websites require careful reassessment with respect to design, content, and user experience. The websites focus primarily on promoting services provided by the hospital rather than engaging and communicating with patients or providing evidence-based information.ConclusionsHealthcare organization and website developers should follow best-practices to improve their websites taking into consideration the quality, readability, objectivity, coverage and currency of the information as well as the design of their websites. Hospitals should leverage social media to gain outreach and better engagement with consumers. The websites should be offered in additional languages commonly spoken by people living in Kuwait. Efforts should be made to ensure that health information on hospital websites are evidence-based and checked by healthcare professionals.

Internet Published Policies Regarding Liver Transplant Eligibility and Substance Use in United States Transplant Centers

“…( 24 ) The internet also has been found to act at times as a platform for advertisement and a “revenue provider” rather than communicating with patients and providing evidence‐based health information. ( 25 ) Despite these concerns, Schaffhausen et al ( 9 ) recently created an internet‐based tool to aid patients in understanding variations in recipient and donor characteristics across liver transplant centers to ultimately select a center. Importantly, this tool received positive feedback from patients undergoing a liver transplant.…”

Social media use for public health promotion in the Gulf Cooperation Council

“…45 The included studies revealed that different SMPs could enhance women's health promotion level, 20,22 breast-feeding practices and adherence knowledge, 21 oral health self-perception and promotion, 23,26 appropriate antibiotic use, 4 adherence to physical activity, 31 road safety awareness, 36 smoking cessation, 38 diabetes knowledge, self-efficacy, 30,40,43 and breast cancer awareness. 41 Although the predominant study design is a qualitative "cross-sectional" type (76.7%) using questionnaires or focus groups, with few interventional studies, 31,35,40,42,43 which proved to be more effective in health promotion than the standard ones, these qualitative studies are still required to provide the basis of fundamental knowledge on which other future studies could be carried out .…”

“…On the other hand, Mejova et al’s 16 analysis of Instagram posts related to the dietary and health activity of the Qatar expats revealed that this population was drastically underrepresented, highlighting the limitation of social media in representing the expat population accurately. Another study by Alhuwail et al 41 analyzed the websites of 9 Kuwaiti hospitals. It revealed that these hospitals had a rudimentary online presence which focused mainly on reinforcing services supplied by the hospitals as a type of advertisement rather than engaging the patients or supplying evidence-based-related information.…”

“…The "country of origin" revealed that the SMP uses for public health promotion in the GCC countries originated remarkably in Saudi Arabia (23/30; 76.7%). [18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26]28,29,[31][32][33][34][35][36][38][39][40][42][43][44] Almost all the included studies were published as original research (26/30; 86.7%), 4,[19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29][30][31][32][33][34][35][36][38][39][40][41][42][43][44] and only 2 studies were conference proceedings (2/30; 6.7%). 16,…”

“…Most studies (n=14; 46.7%) focused on the general population within the GCC countries. 4,16,17,20,23,26,28,29,33,34,36,[40][41][42] On the other hand, others enrolled participants with specified medical entities/risk factors such as smokers, 38 patients with diabetes, 18,24,27,30,43 and obese children. 37 Few studies (n=3; 10%) focused on healthcare professionals, 25,32,44 and other studies (n=6; 20%) 4,16,20,27,29,36 focused on the analysis of public health promotion posts and tweets ( Table 1).…”