March 08, 2025 • By

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Evaluating hospital websites in Kuwait - Dr.Zainab AlMeraj, Dr.Dari Alhuwail & Dr.Fatima Boujarwah

From nine hospitals which were considered six of them were private and three belonged to the Kuwait government sector.

All of the hospitals provided in-patient care and had websites which were online and could be accessed. These hospitals had social media presence too.

The year of study was in 2017 and all the data collection for the study took place in a span which justified the relevance while avoiding variance.

Methodology: Cross-Sectional Analysis (means it uses comparative metrics on various dimensions to compare and evaluate)

Note that the dimensions used in this study are Accessibility, Usability, Presence, and Content of the considered websites.

Evaluating Accessibility:

The researches employed the use of an online tool, AChecker to analyze three commonly used web pages of the considered websites for known, likely and potential problems.

The level of Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) was AA with 2.0 guidelines.

Evaluating Usability:

The Minervation LIDA Instrument v1.2 was used to evaluate the usability (clarity and appropriateness of the language, design consistency, and functionality)

Evaluating Presence:

It is the online presence of the hospital via various channels, including social media. The research used an expert crafted checklist to evaluate various social media channels for each of the hospitals to be included in the cross-sectional analysis.

Evaluating Content:

The websites’ content was assessed using the Health On the Net (HON) Foundation’s Site Evaluation checklist for reliability of health information and secondly evaluating the readability scores using the Fletch-Kincaid Reading Ease and Grade Level scales.

This table summarizes the overall results for the hospitals involved in the research.

Hospital Websites Research Results

More information about the results can be read at BioMed Central

The key takeaway points from this research are:

  1. The results point that private hospitals are doing better than government hospitals with their websites.
  2. There is a need for well-designed websites which are user-centric.
  3. The information presented on such websites need to be evidence-based, while adhering to national and international standards, and not be just digital brochures.
  4. User experience is the need of the hour. Emphasis on designing outward facing websites which empathetically consider the website users is critical for a hospital.
  5. The website needs to cater to the language needs of the users. English and Arabic might not be sufficient when the majority of the population are expatriates.
  6. Leverage the full power of social media to increase presence and engagement.
  7. The content needs to be easily digestible with a sixth-grade reading level. 

Further study: The authors recommend future studies which investigate the perceptions and opinions of patients and consumers in the GCC with respect to the four dimensions mentioned in the current research.

 

Our observations to increase user engagement:

Search Engine Optimization (SEO): 

According to an Internet research reported in April 2015, 80% of the American adults who are online, search for health-related information. Google reports 20% of their search queries in a day are health-related. That turns into a whopping 175 million queries a day, which are health-related. All that was way back in 2015.

The numbers indicate that people use major search engines when looking for health-related information.

It becomes paramount that websites which provide health information need to show up in search results.

To show up better in search results, the websites need to comply with search engine optimization.

The search engine optimization involves the following:

  • proper HTML and CSS code for passing the validation
  • use of meta tags and structured data
  • original user-centric content with references and good backlinks
  • use of social media channels and specific tags to get discovered
  • use of responsive websites
  • improved sitemaps
  • good use of language using appropriate keywords and use of multiple languages for better search results in other languages.
  • use of appropriate data structures while crafting the content

Discovering content on the website:

Once a user reaches the website, it is important to find information quickly which meets the expectations of the users.

This is of utmost importance since most of the usability studies will point in this direction.

Having a custom website search is important.

Filters to funnel to specific content is ever more needed for the easy finding of relevant information.

Sharing content:

An important aspect to increase user engagement is to have the functionality to share content via various apps, and channels. 

That includes sharing on social media, via email, and other apps.

User customized information:

Users typically search repeatedly for similar information. It would be great if such information can be bookmarked or stored easily on the website itself specific to the user.

So that when they visit the website next time, their notes, bookmarks and previous searches are readily available to them.

This provides immense convenience.

 

Overall, we recommend that you read the research paper published by the authors. It is a great first beginning into a larger study, which has a potential to impact many lives and organizations.

 

The authors:

Dr. DariDr. Dari Alhuwail
dari.alhuwail@ku.edu.kw
Department of Information Science, 
College of Computing Sciences and Engineering,
Kuwait University, Adailiya, Kuwait

 

Dr. FatimaDr. Fatima Boujarwah
Assistant Professor,
Kuwait University, Kuwait

 

 

Dr. ZainabDr. Zainab AlMeraj
z.almeraj@gmail.com
Information Sciences Department
College of Computing Sciences and Engineering
Kuwait University

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