Evaluation of Web 2.0 tool

Running Head: - Evaluation of a Web 2.0 Tool

Nursing Informatics: Consumer Informatics and Communications

Evaluation of a Web 2.0 Tool- RWJUH Facebook and Twitter Page.

Biji Iype

Professor- Dr. Eme Ukot

April 28^th 2014

                                                                          

                                                                         Abstract

                                                      Web 2.0 Tools are a category of internet tools and technologies designed to enhance the way consumers (patients) access and customize media and technology for their own purpose. As use of web 2.0 tools becomes all pervasive, how can health and social care services embrace the technological, sociological and cultural changes to form part of the future of healthcare information? Web 2.0 is a new and revolutionary technology that is taking over healthcare, allowing for consumers to interact with data available to them. Social networking and other collaborative tools are bringing patients together to discuss their health and healthcare. It's a move towards citizen centered information, which is in line with the government's philosophy. Web 2.0 can help meet certain areas of the vision for the future of health information and open up new opportunities, but it brings challenges too.

  

Introduction

Web 2.0 Tools are a category of internet tools and technologies designed to enhance the way consumers access and customize media and technology for their own purpose. The term web 2.0, coined in 2004 by O'Reilly, is about using the tools of the web to make the internet a more collaborative place. They include blogs, wikis, Wikipedia, podcasts, mash-ups, and social networking sites. Web 2.0 can put patients in control. It's about the individual and what you can do on the computer, and about virtual communities making use of the internet. Web 2.0 has a clear role in empowering patients, who would be able to use these tools to access online services, information and communities at a time and place to suit them. Patients can use the tools to create the social communities that they want, giving guidance and peer group support in their own language. On chronic illness, published research shows that there are benefits from social interaction, blogs, wikis and social spaces. Web 2.0 is ideal for bringing together geographically dispersed communities, facilitating global collaboration.                                                                                                                                                             

                                       Criteria’s for evaluating a Web 2.0 Tool 

•          Accessibility: The accessibility is very important when you consider a tool for consumers. If it is easy to use, it is more likely that everybody will start using it and update it when it is needed. The accessibility should be free. The webpage for RWJUH is easy to access and within one click the Facebook and twitter page opens which is on the right upper corner of the main page and anybody can join and get information about the topic you are looking for in the same page. Another question consumer will ask to themselves is that, does anything have to be downloaded and installed on the computer to use the tool? The access should be with all the windows users, otherwise consumers will find difficult to get certain windows for the same access. Is there any cost to join this page or tool? If it is free and easy to join, more consumers will use it.

•          How Easy is the learning or the education provided or is it current: If the information on the website is easy to understand and learn, the consumers are going to use it regularly and try to learn and follow what says at the site. If it is easy to look for a doctor through the website and find the right doctor, they will use the RWJUH Facebook and twitter page. The information should be current and up to date when it comes to healthcare. The consumer will look a help section for the tool. The consumers will enjoy the tool if there is some fun factor associated with this learning.

•          Is it helping to improve the communication and relationship? Is this tool helping the consumer to improve communication and to keep the relationship? The consumers can easily get in touch with any doctors or any providers and read any information from the doctors or the hospital providers. If you click on any doctor’s information, it will open up the details and experiences of the doctor.

•          Security: if the site security is good and well encrypted, the consumers will trust the site and use it for their health related questions and communications. But these websites will give information about health but the RWJUH site does not provide any patient information as it is against HIPAA rule.

•          Contents involved in the tool: contents involved in the site should be current and appropriate for the consumers. It has to be reliable information. Twitter page gives us the information regarding recent programs available regarding health. It gives us the information regarding any learning programs. In the Facebook page you can review everybody’s experience with the hospital about the procedures, surgeries or certain units.

                                                                     

                                                                        Conclusion

The information in the website should be useful to each and every consumer. On the other hand, most people are generally good at sensing which sources on the internet are reliable. An un-moderated free for all could provide a counterpart to the professionalism that is also needed. Plus, there are so many good groups in the voluntary service, while it could be argued that the government and NHS are about control and metrics, which doesn’t improve health. In conclusion, web 2.0 appears to offer various benefits, but how the NHS and HI profession should be involved and use them is not so clear cut. Given the potential of these tools, however, it is worth considering how they could fit into the future of healthcare and of health information.