Federal health, recruiting Web sites win kudos

Several key federal electronic government initiatives, including Web sites designed for public use, have experienced remarkable success, according to a report released Monday by the University of Michigan.

In particular, health information and job recruiting Web sites equaled or surpassed similar efforts in the private sector, according to the American Customer Satisfaction Index quarterly report. The report is produced by the University of Michigan Business School, the American Society for Quality and the CFI Group, a consulting firm. An online strategy firm, ForeSee Results, sponsors and analyzes the electronic portions of the index.

"E-government does better, in general, when it has a specific purpose and real focus," said Larry Freed, chief executive officer of ForeSee Results. "Health and recruitment are two high-potential, high-impact areas of e-government."

In a report released last week, the Office of Management and Budget also praised the federal government's e-gov efforts. The OMB report said there was much work to be done to achieve technology goals in the federal government, but the majority of agencies have made "solid progress."

The Michigan report measured 44 federal Web sites and found that "health and recruiting sites earn customer satisfaction scores that rival some of the better-performing e-business and e-commerce sites in the private sector." The National Institutes of Health's Medline Plus scored an 86 on the index's 100-point scale. By comparison, online retail giant Amazon.com achieved an 88, "one of the highest scores ever earned by any company measured by the ACSI," according to a press release.

"Amid all the garbage health information on the Internet, it is important to have a trusted reliable source," Freed said of Medline Plus.

The CIA's recruiting Web site earned an 80 and the State Department jobs page scored a 79. The Office of Personnel Management's USAJOBS Web site, which receives more than 6 million visitors each month, earned a score of 73.

The report applauded agencies' efforts "to make e-government more citizen-centric."

"The growing focus on agencies subjecting themselves to objective user scrutiny and committing to developing services in a very user-driven way is an encouraging sign of how serious they are about getting e-government right," Freed said.