Chong Paul, Grob Patrizia, DiMattia Gina, Calvano Joshua, Swanson Karl, He Shuhan, Gubler K Dean, LaPorta Anthony
Campbell University School of Osteopathic Medicine, Leon Levine Hall of Medical Sciences, Lillington, NC 27546, USA.
College of Medicine, Rocky Vista University College of Osteopathic Medicine, Parker, CO 80134, USA.
Mil Med. 2022 Oct 6. doi: 10.1093/milmed/usac290.
The Military Match is the residency matching system for medical students attending the Uniformed Services University of Health Sciences, and the students were funded by the Health Professions Scholarship Program through the U.S. Army, Air Force, and Navy. To evaluate and compare military residency programs, students use residency program websites. Often, the residency program's website serves as a key source, or the only point of reference, when considering residency options, especially during times when face-to-face interactions are limited.This report aims to provide a systematic evaluation of military residency programs and their websites.
Utilizing a previously published website usability scoring system, military residency programs were categorized to objectively and quantitatively analyze their websites. Usability was divided into four categories for quantifiable analysis: accessibility, marketing, content quality, and technology. The methodology for this analysis was replicated from published reports that have examined healthcare website usability. Each website was analyzed and scored in four categories: accessibility, content quality, marketing, and technology. A "General Usability" score was calculated for each website using a composite of the key factors within the four categories. An overall score was generated utilizing the weighted percentage across all four categories. To address deficiencies of the original methodology, a secondary analysis was performed on the listed websites utilizing an automated methodology for website usability.
A comprehensive list of 125 Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education U.S. Military residency program websites was compiled. Of these, 96 programs and 106 websites were evaluated. The primary analysis employing usability methodology identified technology as the highest ranked category with a score of 0.749 (SD ± 0.039) (SE 0.005) (P < .05). Marketing and content quality were the lowest scoring categories with mean scores of 0.414 (SD ± 0.054) (SE 0.006) and 0.428 (SD ± 0.229) (SE 0.027), respectively (P < .05). There was no significant difference in overall usability rankings or scores among the 96 residency program websites across the three branches (P < .05).Secondary analysis with the new usability methodology demonstrated military residency websites to exhibit more external backlinking compared to internal backlinking (P < 0.05) and no social media backlinking to any of the 106 analyzed websites. When comparing the three services, the Army had significantly lower external backlinking ranking 43.4 (P < .05) and overall backlinking ranking 56.4 (P < 0.05) when compared to the Navy (mean 48.8 and 71.7, and 43.4). There were no other differences in backlinking rankings across the three branches.
Residency websites have become a primary way to communicate information to applicants. By assessing the overall usability of the various military residency websites, we determined the effectiveness of these websites to relay information to prospective students interested in applying for military residency. We predict that by improving website accessibility, residency programs increase their effectiveness at communicating information to potential applicants and increase interest in military residency programs.
军事匹配是就读于美国健康科学统一服务大学的医学生的住院医师匹配系统，这些学生由健康职业奖学金计划通过美国陆军、空军和海军提供资金支持。为了评估和比较军事住院医师项目，学生们会使用住院医师项目的网站。通常，在考虑住院医师选择时，尤其是在面对面交流受限的时期，住院医师项目的网站是一个关键来源，或者是唯一的参考点。本报告旨在对军事住院医师项目及其网站进行系统评估。
利用先前发表的网站可用性评分系统，对军事住院医师项目进行分类，以客观、定量地分析其网站。可用性分为四类进行可量化分析：可访问性、营销、内容质量和技术。该分析方法是从已发表的研究医疗保健网站可用性的报告中复制而来。对每个网站在四个类别中进行分析和评分：可访问性、内容质量、营销和技术。使用四个类别中的关键因素综合计算每个网站的“总体可用性”得分。利用所有四个类别的加权百分比生成总体得分。为了弥补原始方法的不足，对列出的网站采用自动网站可用性方法进行了二次分析。
编制了一份包含125个美国研究生医学教育认证委员会军事住院医师项目网站的综合列表。其中，对96个项目和106个网站进行了评估。采用可用性方法的初步分析确定技术是排名最高的类别，得分为0.749（标准差±0.039）（标准误0.005）（P＜0.05）。营销和内容质量是得分最低的类别，平均得分分别为0.414（标准差±0.054）（标准误0.006）和0.428（标准差±0.229）（标准误0.027）（P＜0.05）。96个住院医师项目网站在三个分支中的总体可用性排名或得分没有显著差异（P＜0.05）。采用新可用性方法的二次分析表明，军事住院医师网站的外部反向链接比内部反向链接更多（P＜0.05），并且106个分析网站中没有任何社交媒体反向链接。在比较三个军种时，与海军相比，陆军的外部反向链接排名显著较低，为43.4（P＜0.05），总体反向链接排名为56.4（P＜0.05）（海军平均为48.8和71.7，陆军为43.4）。三个分支在反向链接排名上没有其他差异。
住院医师网站已成为向申请人传达信息的主要方式。通过评估各种军事住院医师网站的总体可用性，我们确定了这些网站向有兴趣申请军事住院医师的潜在学生传达信息的有效性。我们预测，通过提高网站可访问性，住院医师项目能够提高向潜在申请人传达信息的有效性，并增加对军事住院医师项目的兴趣。
