Reporting of Patient Experience Data on Health Systems’ Websites and Commercial Physician-Rating Websites: Mixed-Methods Analysis

Background Some hospitals’ and health systems’ websites report physician-level ratings and comments drawn from the Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems surveys. Objective The aim was to examine the prevalence and content of health system websites reporting these data and compare narratives from these sites to narratives from commercial physician-rating sites. Methods We identified health system websites active between June 1 and 30, 2016, that posted clinician reviews. For 140 randomly selected clinicians, we extracted the number of star ratings and narrative comments. We conducted a qualitative analysis of a random sample of these physicians’ narrative reviews and compared these to a random sample of reviews from commercial physician-rating websites. We described composite quantitative scores for sampled physicians and compared the frequency of themes between reviews drawn from health systems’ and commercial physician-rating websites. Results We identified 42 health systems that published composite star ratings (42/42, 100%) or narratives (33/42, 79%). Most (27/42, 64%) stated that they excluded narratives deemed offensive. Of 140 clinicians, the majority had composite scores listed (star ratings: 122/140, 87.1%; narrative reviews: 114/140, 81.4%), with medians of 110 star ratings (IQR 42-175) and 25.5 (IQR 13-48) narratives. The rating median was 4.8 (IQR 4.7-4.9) out of five stars, and no clinician had a score less than 4.2. Compared to commercial physician-rating websites, we found significantly fewer negative comments on health system websites (35.5%, 76/214 vs 12.8%, 72/561, respectively; P<.001). Conclusions The lack of variation in star ratings on health system sites may make it difficult to differentiate between clinicians. Most health systems report that they remove offensive comments, and we notably found fewer negative comments on health system websites compared to commercial physician-rating sites.

[1]  Thomas D. Sequist,et al.  Physician and Patient Views on Public Physician Rating Websites: A Cross-Sectional Study , 2017, Journal of general internal medicine.

[2]  Tara Lagu,et al.  Website Characteristics and Physician Reviews on Commercial Physician-Rating Websites , 2017, JAMA.

[3]  Steven C. Martino,et al.  Breaking Narrative Ground: Innovative Methods for Rigorously Eliciting and Assessing Patient Narratives. , 2016, Health services research.

[4]  Zachary F. Meisel,et al.  Yelp Reviews Of Hospital Care Can Supplement And Inform Traditional Surveys Of The Patient Experience Of Care. , 2016, Health affairs.

[5]  Shawn J. Gagne,et al.  Vaccine counseling: a content analysis of patient-physician discussions regarding human papilloma virus vaccine. , 2011, Vaccine.

[6]  Uwe Sander,et al.  Physician Choice Making and Characteristics Associated With Using Physician-Rating Websites: Cross-Sectional Study , 2013, Journal of medical Internet research.

[7]  Ritu Agarwal,et al.  How Online Quality Ratings Influence Patients’ Choice of Medical Providers: Controlled Experimental Survey Study , 2018, Journal of medical Internet research.

[8]  Marc N Elliott,et al.  Development, Implementation, and Public Reporting of the HCAHPS Survey , 2010, Medical care research and review : MCRR.

[9]  Ara Darzi,et al.  Tweets about hospital quality: a mixed methods study , 2014, BMJ quality & safety.

[10]  T. Lagu,et al.  Patients’ Evaluations of Health Care Providers in the Era of Social Networking: An Analysis of Physician-Rating Websites , 2010, Journal of General Internal Medicine.

[11]  U. Sarkar,et al.  What Patients Say About Their Doctors Online: A Qualitative Content Analysis , 2012, Journal of General Internal Medicine.

[12]  Steven C Martino,et al.  Taking Patients' Narratives about Clinicians from Anecdote to Science. , 2015, The New England journal of medicine.

[13]  R. Hays,et al.  Psychometric properties of the CAHPS (TM) 1.0 survey measures , 1998 .

[14]  Peter K Lindenauer,et al.  A mixed-methods analysis of patient reviews of hospital care in England: implications for public reporting of health care quality data in the United States. , 2013, Joint Commission journal on quality and patient safety.

[15]  Alex Macario,et al.  Analysis of 4999 Online Physician Ratings Indicates That Most Patients Give Physicians a Favorable Rating , 2011, Journal of medical Internet research.

[16]  David A Hanauer,et al.  Public awareness, perception, and use of online physician rating sites. , 2014, JAMA.

[17]  Vivian S. Lee.  Transparency and Trust - Online Patient Reviews of Physicians. , 2017, The New England journal of medicine.

[18]  Steven C. Martino,et al.  Consumer Response to Patient Experience Measures in Complex Information Environments , 2012, Medical care.

[19]  Uwe Sander,et al.  Do Health Care Providers Use Online Patient Ratings to Improve the Quality of Care? Results From an Online-Based Cross-Sectional Study , 2016, Journal of medical Internet research.

[20]  Hsiu-Fang Hsieh,et al.  Three Approaches to Qualitative Content Analysis , 2005, Qualitative health research.

[21]  Elinore J. Kaufman,et al.  Content of Weblogs Written by Health Professionals , 2008, Journal of General Internal Medicine.

[22]  Steven C. Martino,et al.  Complexity, Public Reporting, and Choice of Doctors , 2014, Medical care research and review : MCRR.

[23]  T. Lagu,et al.  Can social media be used as a hospital quality improvement tool? , 2016, Journal of hospital medicine.

[24]  Provider-Initiated Patient Satisfaction Reporting Yields Improved Physician Ratings Relative to Online Rating Websites. , 2017, Orthopedics.

[25]  Michael B. Rothberg,et al.  Patients’ Evaluations of Health Care Providers in the Era of Social Networking: An Analysis of Physician-Rating Websites , 2010, Journal of general internal medicine.