Requirements Analysis of Information Services for Patients on a General Practitioner's Website

Summary

Objective : To elicit and analyze information needs of patients and primary care physicians (GPs) regarding the information services (static and functional) that a GP's practice website should provide.

Methods : To find candidate information services, we conducted a literature search and examined primary care physicians' websites, especially Dutch websites. Semi-structured depth interviews with the stakeholders, Dutch patients and GPs, were done to arrive at a final checklist. We then conducted a survey to elicit the level of importance associated with each service on the checklist. The data underwent statistical analysis and relevant requirements were formulated. The requirements were then validated by interviews. General website quality and usability aspects were elicited from the literature.

Results : The research resulted in a checklist of 38 selected information services including their priority ratings for patients and GPs; a discrepancy list between GP and patient priorities; and a requirements document containing information services (14 static and 6 functional), and general quality and usability aspects (8 and 5).

Conclusion : The following items occurred in the top 10 of both user groups: general practice information, information of local public health institutions, self-help information, repeat prescription, links to health websites. At the bottom on both priority lists were: links to journals, tests and forums. Dutch GPs are much more selective in terms of which information services to provide on-line. Discrepancy between the two groups concerns on-line services that seem to require a change to the GP's workflow, or those services that are not recognized for reimbursing the GP. Although the Dutch patients' requirements seem to generalize to other patients, the conflict list might depend on the primary care system.

Keywords

Requirements analysis - information services (MeSH) - medical websites - GP

• References

• 1. Council for Public Health and Health Care.. From patient to client, 2003 (in Dutch)
• 2. Powell JA, Darvell M. et al. The doctor, the patient and the world-wide web: how the internet is changing healthcare. J R Soc Med 2003; 96: 74-76.
• 3. Smith JJ, Mallard-Smith RJ. et al. Use of information technology in general practice. J R Soc Med 2003; 96: 395-397.
• 4. Howitt A. An evaluation of general practice websites in the UK, Family Practice 2002 19. 547 556
• 5. Potts H, Wyatt J. Survey of Doctors’Experienceof Patients Using the Internet. JMIR 2002; 4 (01) e5.
• 6. Murray E, Lo B. et al. The impact ofhealth information on the internet on health care and the physician-patient relationship. JMIR 2003; 5 (03) e17.
• 7. Commission of the European Communities.. eEurope 2002: Quality Criteria for Health related website http://wwwjmir.org/2002/3/e15/ JMIR 2002; 4 (03) e15.
• 8. Kim P, Eng T. et al. Published criteria for evaluating health related web sites. BMJ 1999; 318 (647) 649.
• 9. Winker M, Flanagin A. etal. Guidelines formedical and health information sites on the internet. JAMA 2000; 283 (12) 1600-1601.
• 10. AMA, Guidelines for AMA web sites. JAMA 2000; 283 (12) 1602-1607.
• 11. de Roos M, Brouwer HJ. et al. Assessment criteria for websites with health information. GP and Science 2002; 45 (06) 290-293 (in Dutch).
• 12. Eysenbach G, Powell J. et al. Empirical Studies assessing the quality of health information for consumers on the World Wide Web. JAMA 2002; 20: 2691-2699.
• 13. http://www.hon.ch
• 14. Silberg WM, Lundberg DM. et al. Assessing, controlling and assuring the quality of medical information on the internet. JAMA 1997; 277 (15) 1244-5.
• 15. Sherrell LB, Chen L. LThe W lifecycle Model and Associated Methodology for Corporate Web Site Development. Communications of AIS 2001: 5 article 7
• 16. Murugesan S, Deshpande Y, Hansen S, Ginige A. Web Engineering: ANew Discipline for Development of Web-based Systems. First ICSE Workshop on Web Engineering (WebE-99).Los Angeles, USA; 1999: 1-9.
• 17. Ginige A. Web Engineering: Methodologies for Developing Large and Maintainable, Proc IEEE International Conference on Networking the India and the World CNIW-98, Ahmedabad, India, 1998
• 18. Nielsen J. Functional webdesign. Indianapolis: Pearson Education; 2001
• 19. Vogel J, Cox D. Checklist voor een praktijk website (in Dutch). www.artsennet.nl (viewed 12, 2003)
• 20. Somerville I. Software Engineering. Wokingham: Addison-Wesley; 1995
• 21. Macinko J, Starfield B. et al. The Contribution of Primary Care Systems to Health Outcomes within Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development(OECD) Countries, 1970-1998. Health Serv Res 2003; 38 (03) 831-865 http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=1360919#b76
• 22. Europeanprimarycare. The Hague: Health Council of the Netherlands. 2004 publication no. 2004/20E. ISBN-10: 90-5549-549-2, http:/www.gr.nl/adviezen.php?ID=1119