IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jijerp/v16y2019i3p399-d202190.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Official Websites of Local Health Centers in Taiwan: A Nationwide Study

Author

Listed:
  • Ya-Chuan Hsu

    (Department of Family Medicine, Taipei Veterans General Hospital, No. 201, Sec. 2, Shi-Pai Road, Taipei 112, Taiwan)

  • Tzeng-Ji Chen

    (Department of Family Medicine, Taipei Veterans General Hospital, No. 201, Sec. 2, Shi-Pai Road, Taipei 112, Taiwan
    School of Medicine, National Yang-Ming University, No. 155, Sec. 2, Linong Street, Taipei 112, Taiwan)

  • Feng-Yuan Chu

    (Department of Family Medicine, Taipei Veterans General Hospital, No. 201, Sec. 2, Shi-Pai Road, Taipei 112, Taiwan)

  • Hao-Yen Liu

    (Department of Family Medicine, Taipei Veterans General Hospital, No. 201, Sec. 2, Shi-Pai Road, Taipei 112, Taiwan)

  • Li-Fang Chou

    (Department of Public Finance, National Chengchi University, Taipei 116, Taiwan)

  • Shinn-Jang Hwang

    (Department of Family Medicine, Taipei Veterans General Hospital, No. 201, Sec. 2, Shi-Pai Road, Taipei 112, Taiwan
    School of Medicine, National Yang-Ming University, No. 155, Sec. 2, Linong Street, Taipei 112, Taiwan)

Abstract

Local health centers (LHCs) play a key role in public health. Because it has now become popular to seek health information on the Internet, an effective website is indispensable to an LHC. Our study aimed to survey the official websites of LHCs in Taiwan with an evaluation framework. All 369 LHCs in Taiwan were surveyed in March 2018. The evaluation indicators included health information, online interactive services, technical features, institutional information, links to external resources, website management, the last updated time, and number of visitors. The indicators were stratified by the urbanization levels of the LHCs. In total, 98.0% ( n = 360) of the LHCs had official websites. The majority ( n = 241) of the websites were updated within the past 30 days, and most of the websites ( n = 353) provided health information. However, the information provided varied considerably. Few LHCs ( n = 31) provided online interactive services in terms of an online appointment function. In terms of providing online consultation services, rural LHCs outperformed suburban and urban LHCs (16.4% versus 14.5% and 6.0%, respectively). Most LHCs in Taiwan do not seem to take full advantage of the Internet, with their websites typically serving as static bulletin boards instead of new channels of communication. Further studies could focus on the effectiveness of these websites.

Suggested Citation

  • Ya-Chuan Hsu & Tzeng-Ji Chen & Feng-Yuan Chu & Hao-Yen Liu & Li-Fang Chou & Shinn-Jang Hwang, 2019. "Official Websites of Local Health Centers in Taiwan: A Nationwide Study," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 16(3), pages 1-10, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:16:y:2019:i:3:p:399-:d:202190
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/16/3/399/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/16/3/399/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Po-Chin Yang & Wui-Chiang Lee & Hao-Yen Liu & Mei-Ju Shih & Tzeng-Ji Chen & Li-Fang Chou & Shinn-Jang Hwang, 2018. "Use of Facebook by Hospitals in Taiwan: A Nationwide Survey," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 15(6), pages 1-10, June.
    2. Kankana Mukherjee & Rexford Santerre & Ning Jackie Zhang, 2010. "Explaining the efficiency of local health departments in the U.S.: an exploratory analysis," Health Care Management Science, Springer, vol. 13(4), pages 378-387, December.
    3. Harris, J.K. & Mueller, N.L. & Snider, D., 2013. "Social media adoption in local health departments nationwide," American Journal of Public Health, American Public Health Association, vol. 103(9), pages 1700-1707.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Chengyan Zhu & Xiaolin Xu & Wei Zhang & Jianmin Chen & Richard Evans, 2019. "How Health Communication via Tik Tok Makes a Difference: A Content Analysis of Tik Tok Accounts Run by Chinese Provincial Health Committees," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 17(1), pages 1-13, December.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Chengyan Zhu & Xiaolin Xu & Wei Zhang & Jianmin Chen & Richard Evans, 2019. "How Health Communication via Tik Tok Makes a Difference: A Content Analysis of Tik Tok Accounts Run by Chinese Provincial Health Committees," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 17(1), pages 1-13, December.
    2. Yi-Chung Hsu, 2014. "Efficiency in government health spending: a super slacks-based model," Quality & Quantity: International Journal of Methodology, Springer, vol. 48(1), pages 111-126, January.
    3. Obure, Carol Dayo & Jacobs, Rowena & Guinness, Lorna & Mayhew, Susannah & Vassall, Anna, 2016. "Does integration of HIV and sexual and reproductive health services improve technical efficiency in Kenya and Swaziland? An application of a two-stage semi parametric approach incorporating quality me," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 151(C), pages 147-156.
    4. Afiq Izzudin A. Rahim & Mohd Ismail Ibrahim & Kamarul Imran Musa & Sook-Ling Chua & Najib Majdi Yaacob, 2021. "Assessing Patient-Perceived Hospital Service Quality and Sentiment in Malaysian Public Hospitals Using Machine Learning and Facebook Reviews," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(18), pages 1-28, September.
    5. Bhimani, Hardik & Mention, Anne-Laure & Barlatier, Pierre-Jean, 2019. "Social media and innovation: A systematic literature review and future research directions," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 144(C), pages 251-269.
    6. Angela Chang & Xuechang Xian & Matthew Tingchi Liu & Xinshu Zhao, 2022. "Health Communication through Positive and Solidarity Messages Amid the COVID-19 Pandemic: Automated Content Analysis of Facebook Uses," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(10), pages 1-16, May.
    7. Beniamino Schiavone & Andrea Vitale & Mena Gallo & Gianlucasalvatore Russo & Domenico Ponticelli & Mario Borrelli, 2021. "Overview of Facebook Use by Hospitals in Italy: A Nationwide Survey during the COVID-19 Emergency," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(14), pages 1-17, July.
    8. Wang, Di & Lu, Jiahui & Zhong, Ying, 2023. "Futile or fertile? The effect of persuasive strategies on citizen engagement in COVID-19 vaccine-related tweets across six national health departments," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 317(C).
    9. Sarah C. Vos & Jeannette Sutton & Yue Yu & Scott Leo Renshaw & Michele K. Olson & C. Ben Gibson & Carter T. Butts, 2018. "Retweeting Risk Communication: The Role of Threat and Efficacy," Risk Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 38(12), pages 2580-2598, December.
    10. Pi-Chun Hsu & I-Hsiung Chang & Ru-Si Chen, 2019. "Online Learning Communities and Mental Health Literacy for Preschool Teachers: The Moderating Role of Enthusiasm for Engagement," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 16(22), pages 1-9, November.
    11. Dino Rizzi & Michele Zanette, 2021. "Potential efficiency gains and expenditure savings in the Italian Regional Healthcare Systems," Politica economica, Società editrice il Mulino, issue 2, pages 187-214.
    12. Po-Chin Yang & Feng-Yuan Chu & Hao-Yen Liu & Mei-Ju Shih & Tzeng-Ji Chen & Li-Fang Chou & Shinn-Jang Hwang, 2019. "Features of Online Hospital Appointment Systems in Taiwan: A Nationwide Survey," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 16(2), pages 1-10, January.
    13. Afiq Izzudin A. Rahim & Mohd Ismail Ibrahim & Kamarul Imran Musa & Sook-Ling Chua, 2021. "Facebook Reviews as a Supplemental Tool for Hospital Patient Satisfaction and Its Relationship with Hospital Accreditation in Malaysia," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(14), pages 1-16, July.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:16:y:2019:i:3:p:399-:d:202190. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.