Section of Hygiene, Epidemiology and Public Health, Department of Experimental and Applied Medicine, University of Brescia, Brescia, Italy.
BMC Med Inform Decis Mak. 2010 Apr 1;10:17. doi: 10.1186/1472-6947-10-17.
Although the use of the Internet for health purposes has increased steadily in the last decade, only a few studies have explored the information provided by the websites of health institutions and no studies on the on-line activities of Italian hospitals have been performed to date. The aim of this study was to explore the characteristics of the contents and the user-orientation of Italian hospital websites.
The cross-sectional analysis considered all the Italian hospitals with a working website between December 2008 and February 2009. The websites were coded using an ad hoc Codebook, comprising eighty-nine items divided into five sections: technical characteristics, hospital information and facilities, medical services, interactive on-line services and external activities. We calculated a website evaluation score, on the basis of the items satisfied, to compare private (PrHs) and public hospitals, the latter divided into ones with their own website (PubHs-1) and ones with a section on the website of their Local Health Authority (PubHs-2). Lastly, a descriptive analysis of each item was carried out.
Out of the 1265 hospitals in Italy, we found that 419 of the 652 public hospitals (64.3%) and 344 of the 613 PrHs (56.1%) had a working website (p = 0.01). The mean website evaluation score was 41.9 for PubHs-1, 21.2 for PubHs-2 and 30.8 for PrHs (p < 0.001).Only 5 hospitals out of 763 (< 1%) provided specific clinical performance indicators, such as the nosocomial infection rate or the surgical mortality rates. Regarding interactive on-line services, although nearly 80% of both public and private hospitals enabled users to communicate on-line, less than 18% allowed the reservation of medical services, and only 8 websites (1%) provided a health-care forum.
A high percentage of hospitals did not provide an official website and the majority of the websites found had several limitations. Very few hospitals provided information to increase the credibility of the hospital and user confidence in the institution. This study suggests that Italian hospital websites are more a source of information on admissions and services than a means of communication between user and hospital.
尽管在过去十年中，人们越来越多地使用互联网来获取健康信息，但只有少数研究探讨了医疗机构网站提供的信息，而且迄今为止，尚无关于意大利医院在线活动的研究。本研究旨在探讨意大利医院网站内容和用户导向的特点。
本横断面研究分析了 2008 年 12 月至 2009 年 2 月期间所有有工作网站的意大利医院。使用专门的代码簿对网站进行编码，该代码簿包含 89 个项目，分为五个部分：技术特征、医院信息和设施、医疗服务、在线互动服务和外部活动。我们根据满足的项目计算了网站评估得分，以比较私立医院（PrHs）和公立医院，后者分为有自己网站的医院（PubHs-1）和在其地方卫生局网站上有部分内容的医院（PubHs-2）。最后，对每个项目进行了描述性分析。
在意大利的 1265 家医院中，我们发现 652 家公立医院中有 419 家（64.3%）和 613 家私立医院中有 344 家（56.1%）有工作网站（p = 0.01）。PubHs-1 的平均网站评估得分是 41.9，PubHs-2 是 21.2，PrHs 是 30.8（p < 0.001）。在 763 家医院中，仅有 5 家（< 1%）提供了具体的临床绩效指标，如院内感染率或手术死亡率。关于在线互动服务，尽管近 80%的公立医院和私立医院允许用户在线交流，但只有不到 18%的医院允许预订医疗服务，只有 8 个网站（1%）提供了医疗保健论坛。
很大比例的医院没有提供官方网站，而且发现的大多数网站都存在一些局限性。很少有医院提供信息以提高医院的可信度和用户对机构的信心。本研究表明，意大利医院网站更像是用户获取住院和服务信息的来源，而不是用户与医院之间交流的手段。
