Diego M. Lopez*, Telematics Department, University of Cauca, Colombia- South America, Popayan, Colombia Martha L. Ortega, Systems Department, University of Cauca, Colombia- South America, Popayan, Colombia Carolina Gonzalez, University of Cauca, Colombia- South America, Popayan, Colombia Alejandro Fernandez, LIFIA, Universidad de la Plata, La Plata, Argentina Alicia Diaz, LIFIA, Universidad de la Plata, La Plata, Argentina Regina Motz, Universidad de la República, Montevideo, Uruguay Track: Research Presentation Topic: Building virtual communities and social networking applications for patients and consumers Presentation Type: Poster presentation Submission Type: Single Presentation Last modified: 2012-09-12

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Background: Quality of information is identified as one of the main limitations in online healthcare social network services (OH-SNS). Weitzman identified several quality limitations in OH-SNS including lack of alignment with clinical guidelines, accuracy, misinformation, etc. The IMIA Consumer Health Informatics WG alerted about the need for measuring/assessing quality of social networked interventions. Despite the apparent reduced complexity (technical) of OH-SNS deployment, the real challenge is quality of information assurance in such collaborative environments.
Objective: The objective of the paper is to contribute to the analysis of OH-SNS by proposing a methodology for quality of information (QI) management.
Methods: The development process (methodology) follows an architectural paradigm. It analyses several aspects (domains of interest) of the system (OH-SNS), describing its system elements (services) and interrelations (functions). This paper is focused on the QI domain. QI management begins with a needs-assessment identifying the OH-SNS’ scope and nature of information. The next step is the definition of QI policies. Finally, the technical implementation is provided. The methodology was evaluated in an OH-SNS case study, deployed for supporting Health Promotion and Education Programs of the Medical Service at University of Cauca, Colombia.
Results: (1). Needs-assessment. An online-survey was performed inquiring potential users about the information they expect to be offered/managed. 180 responses were collected, 56% male, 64% with ages ranging from 17-34years. 54% were students, 24% faculty, and 20% administrative staff. The more frequent topics (> 50%) were: Nutrition (69%), sexually-transmitted infections (62%), gastritis (61%), contraception (61%), breast-cancer (54%) and early-childhood care (50%). Main topics of interest in adults (>=35 years) were cervix-cancer, and early-childhood care. Sexually-transmitted infections and vaccination are topics of major interest in younger adults (>35 years). Hypertension and diabetes were the preferred topics of responders aged 55 or more. Participants were asked about their preferred publication format: text (57%), images (63%), or video (74%).
(2). Quality of Information Policy. A QI policy was developed based on existing policies, e.g., the EU quality-criteria for health-websites, the HON code of conduct and AMA and APHA quality policies. The policy included the definition of quality-attributes and metrics: accuracy, readability and relevance. Details of the quality-attributes. in: (https://docs.google.com/open?id=0ByUQwIyzpZ1YWUZxelJGNHNUQUNTNzlpd1g1WXVZdw)
(3). OH-SNS Implementation. The platform is a configuration of the Elgg platform, offering services like: user’s profile, Blogs, Groups, Twitter and e-mail. The needs-assessment supported the definition of Groups. Quality-attributes were used for selecting 50 “opening” resources to be published as Blogs entries. An expert used the quality-criteria for selecting the resources (videos, documents or web-pages). For the selection, a formal evaluation of available Web resources was performed, assessing each quality indicator per resource. Resources scoring greater than 7 (max 10) were chosen. The list of resources and scores are in: (https://docs.google.com/open?id=0ByUQwIyzpZ1YR01JczRXeGZUdkNaWHhhNHVOeGJnUQ).
Conclusion: The needs assessment and quality policy are necessary to manage quality of content in OH-SNS. The paper proposes a methodology for quality of information management in OH-SNS. Based on the results, an OH-SNS was implemented (http://esalud.unicauca.edu.co/redunisalud/). Our future work is to provide an evaluation of the QI published, from the user´s perspective.