Patients’ expectations and online presence of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery in the United Kingdom

In patient-centred medical practice, consideration of the patients’ expectations is vital to the planning and delivery of service. Modern medicine must use the continuing advances in information technology to disseminate knowledge and raise awareness among patients and the public. People increasingly use the Internet to search for information on health, and the online presence of an organisation or a profession is known to bring a wide range of benefits. We aimed to find out what patients expect from the website of an Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery (OMFS) unit and to assess the online presence of OMFS units in the United Kingdom. Results from 100 self-administered questionnaires showed that there were 18 common domains that patients would like to see on OMFS websites. When ranked according to the number of times they were mentioned, a map of the department was mentioned most and the complaints policy least. Of the 156 OMFS units in the UK, only 51% have websites and of these, 80% are in London. There were none in Wales and Northern Ireland. Only half of the websites contained information that related to patients’ expectations. Strategies to improve the content of websites for OMFS units and to improve their online presence are urgently needed.