The research purpose was to explore webpages of hospitals and to
evaluate the level of its usage as social and financial instrument.
In the following article, the hospitals’ websites are analyzed
according to different criteria such as the usage of the websites as
instruments of financial endowment, fundraising, public relations
and direct sales. A group of cultural studies scholars, researchers
of usability and web-developers has investigated 14 webpages of
different hospitals in Russia, Belarus, Estonia and Finland. In the
framework of this research, we examined the websites of the 4
capital cities in the region (Minsk, Tallinn, Helsinki and in the
case of Russia St Petersburg). In order to maintain experimental
integrity, the investigated hospitals were taken from the same
field. There were children hospital’s websites, hospital clinics,
and municipal hospitals. As a result, the following research
identified the pivotal points that are typical for the whole region
and for the specific countries in particular. The research has
shown that the hospital webpages are not used efficiently enough
as a tool to attract potential audience due to the fact that the
website’s purpose is mainly considered as an advertisement or
PR-tool