Are Healthcare Websites Sick?

As the debate on healthcare continues, we decided to look at the healthcare websites that we measure at ForeSee Results and see how they are meeting the needs of consumers.  You can download the full report here.

Why look at consumer satisfaction of healthcare sites?  Well, as the debate goes on, one thing is certain, healthcare costs a lot of money.  And one way to reduce and manage some of those costs is better use of technology, for example, improving the quality and effectiveness of the healthcare websites.  The web brings us the opportunity of a win-win that is rarely available in other channels.  The first win is providing more information to citizens when they need it, anytime from anywhere you can get to the internet.  More information that is more readily available to consumers is a big win for consumers.  The second win is cost.  By providing more information, be it educational information about symptoms of a disease, potential side effects of a drug, information about the services provide by a hospital or information about deductibles and co-pays of your health insurance, we can lower the cost of providing the information to consumers.  A more informed consumer will make better health care decisions and lower the total cost of the servicing of that consumer.  A win - win!

So, how did the healthcare sites we measured do.  First of all, we surveyed more then  40,000 consumers who visited these healthcare sites in October and we utilized the proven methodology of the American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI) that was founded at The University of Michigan to measure the consumers satisfaction with the websites and how it would impact the consumer's future behavior.  We segmented the sites into four categories and their satisfaction scores are as follows:

• Government Health Information Sites     79
• Pharmaceutical Sites                           78
• Hospital Sites                                      73
• Health Insurance Sites                          64

The aggregate across all sites was 75.  To put these numbers in comparison, we look at 80 as the threshold for a very good site.  On average, the over 700 sites measured everyday by ForeSee Results, resulting in over 1 million completed surveys per month, score a 72, 4% below the healthcare index.  Not bad! 

The sites measured were wide ranging in their success to date, with scores as low as 42 and as high as 86.  86 is the same score that web leaders Amazon and Google obtained in their most recent published ACSI report.  Very impressive results from some of these healthcare sites.

I applaud all the sites (even the ones scoring in the 40's) because the first step to improvement is to measure.  You cannot manage what you do not measure.  And if you don't measure it you won't know if you improved.  So those low scoring sites are at the beginning of a journey that is bound to take them nowhere but up.

So, does satisfaction really matter for these sites?  Well, we talked about the win-win earlier, but lets take another perspective on it.  When we looked across those 40,000 consumers surveyed in October on these healthcare sites, we see that there is huge payback for high satisfaction.  When we look at the consumers who scored 80 or higher and compare them to those that scored 69 or lower, across all the sites, we see that the highly satisfied consumer is:

• 139% more likely to return to the website
• 169% more likely to recommend the website to others
• 153% more likely to use the website as a primary resource for interacting with the healthcare organization

This is truly a huge payback for satisfying your customers and results in the win-win, more information and services at a lower cost.

Comments

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The Web Marketing Association’s annual WebAward Competition has been setting the standard of excellence for Website development. Independent expert judges from around the world review sites in 96 industries. The best are recognized with a WebAward which helps interactive professionals promote themselves, their companies, and their best work to the outside world.

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I download this full report. Lot's a stuff over there. Thank you

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Our country is in the middle of a passionate debate about how to improve efficiency and decrease costs without sacrificing the quality of care and one immediate way to have a tangible impact is to improve the way that health information and services are provided by these organizations online. These are changes that can be made at the company level, immediately, without the need for changes to policy and legislation.”

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WebMD is probably the most comprehensive health resource for everyday consumers as well as physicians, nurses, and educators. Like several other sites on this list, it's not a "pure" 2.0 website. Nonetheless, the blogging community and chat forums are very active. Go to their type 2 diabetes forum, and you'll probably find 2 or 3 conversations that have started in just the last hour. When I have a health problem, webmd is one of the 1st places I turn to - to find out whether or not I should go see my doc and to understand how to self-treat. I especially like the section on what to ask your doctor if you have certain conditions.

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Each year the Web Marketing Association names the Best Health Care web site as part of the annual WebAward Competition. Now in it’s 14th year, the WebAwards are recognized as the premier industry based Website Award program in the world

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A Pallasart website can help health care professionals and firms communicate information about important health issues to a global community.

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The best are recognized with a WebAward which helps interactive professionals promote themselves, their companies, and their best work to the outside world.

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Nonetheless, the blogging community and chat forums are very active. Go to their type 2 diabetes forum, and you'll probably find 2 or 3 conversations that have started in just the last hour.

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Thank you and good job. Great article! I really gotta send it to some friends from college, they would really appreciate it. This is the first time I visit your site, but I can guarantee you'll see me around. You have some valuable stuff here.

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Customer satisfaction levels are down: ACSI reportCustomer satisfaction levels have retreated for the first time since 2005.

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At a score of 75.2, the overall ACSI is down 0.1% compared with the previous quarter — but 1% above where it was last year.

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Annual competition of the Web Marketing Association WebAward has been setting the standard of excellence for web development. independent expert judges from around the world exam sites in 96 industries. The best are recognized with a WebAward helping interactive professionals promote themselves, their companies and their best work with the outside world.

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I can download the full report. Lot of stuff out there. Thanks.

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Our country is in the midst of a passionate debate on how to improve efficiency and reduce costs without sacrificing quality of care and an immediate way to have a tangible effect is to improve the way health information and services are provided by these online organizations.

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WebMD is probably the most comprehensive health resource for consumers every day, as well as doctors, nurses and educators. Like several other sites on this list, not a "pure" web 2.0 site. However, the community of blogs and discussion forums are very active. Go to your forum with type 2 diabetes, and you'll probably find two or three conversations that have begun in just the last hour.

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Go to your forum with type 2 diabetes, and you'll probably find two or three conversations that have begun in just the last hour. When I have a health problem, webmd is one of the first places to turn to - to know whether or not I go see my doc and to understand how a self-treatment. I especially like the section on what to ask your doctor if you have certain conditions.

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These are changes that can be done at the enterprise level, immediately, without changes in policy and legislation.

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The first victory is to provide more information to citizens when needed, at any time from any place you can access the Internet.

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These are changes that can be done at the enterprise level, immediately, without changes in policy and legislation.