This post is by Adam Gaub, Lead Editor of SmartBrief for Health Care Marketers.
There are already a number of social-media sites available for consumers to see the good and the bad about prospective doctors and hospitals, but now the publication best known for its rankings of the good and not-so-good in the business world is getting into the act.
This week, Consumer Reports published an online list of more than 200 medical groups that perform heart bypass surgery, ranking them on a three-level scale. Their rankings are based on data that comes from an evaluation conducted by the Society of Thoracic Surgeons — with some qualms from some of its members.
Of prime concern for many, STS chairman of quality and research Dr. Fred Edwards told The New York Times, is the notion that the ratings can misrepresent the success or inexperience of a particular group.
“What if you’re the sickest patient they’ve seen in three years?” Edwards asked, revealing a concern that practices that take on tougher cases may get rated lower simply because the surgery outcomes aren’t always as successful as those that don’t.
While it may not be a perfect system, it’s a sign the medical community is beginning to respond to the world of social media, where doctors and many other service providers can find themselves at the mercy of semi-anonymous online reviewers. Some choose to reach out directly to patients, with sites such as TwitterDoctors.net tracking the exposure and re-tweetability of the information posted by doctors — from the well-known, such as Dr. Drew and CNN medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta, to your local pediatrician.
Massachusetts-based physician Dr. Tara Lagu recently wrote a paper on the sites, such as Vitals.com, which are used by the public to post and peruse reviews of local doctors. Lagu told the Boston Globe in an interview last month that while patients aren’t simply going to believe everything they read online, doctors could do a better job of interacting with patients via the social-media realm.
“I think doctors don’t recognize the whole patient experience, but patients do: whether the parking was accessible and whether the receptionist was polite and whether they got into the room and sat for 45 minutes or whether they were seen promptly and were able to communicate with the doctor in a way that was pleasing to them,” Lagu said. “It is notable we saw very few reviews saying they got the wrong diagnosis, or surgery was bad.”
Lagu’s point is well-taken — often the experience of the patient has little to do with whether they got the proper treatment, but the entire process of getting said treatment. In a country where health insurance will soon be all but required, physicians and others in the health care industry need to gather as much information from the public as they can — and be willing to demonstrate that they are learning from it.
The STS ratings release is a good first step.
Image credit, broken3, via iStockphoto
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[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Jason Murphy, SBHealthCare, youredgeonline, RT17, Santi Chacon and others. Santi Chacon said: Are review sites good for what ails health care?: This post is by Adam Gaub, Lead Editor of SmartBrief for Health … http://bit.ly/d8HZX2 [...]
I want my doctor to spend his or her time learning about new ways to improve my health (journal articles, conferences, refreshers, etc) and not worrying about how easy the parking is or if the flowers in the reception area are fresh. And I worry a bit that sites that aggregate patient observations are going to chronicle just that — the easy-to-see stuff like wait times or new paint. I'm not AGAINST aggregating patient opinion, but we may be sending the wrong message to doctors. Namely, "If I'm not comfortable, I'll grade you lower." It seems akin to grading a college based on how nice the lawn in the quad is (which people do all the time).
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Good feedback here — The parking lot may be a bit of an extreme example, but I think wait times and how nurses and other support staff treat patients is vitally important for doctors to know. They may be the best doc in the world, but if it's taking me an hour to get seen past my appointment time or the nurse checking my vitals is abrupt and unsympathetic, those are things I would think the doctor should want to know.
It might be good to gather information from such sites, but you should only use this for personal consumption. My husband and I learned our lesson when we actually referred to a healthcare site for diagnosis when I was pregnant. It was wrong that we relied on the internet. My baby could have gotten infection had we not called my doctor.
P.S. Do not mislead others or be misled by marketing. Let me share with you the Do's and Dont's of Video Marketing
Absolutely agree, Kirstine. Everything taken from the net should be had with at least a grain of salt, if not more.
Wheter doctors and hospital administrators like it or not, patients and their families do share their opinions with neighbors, friends, relatives, co-workers, and even complete strangers. It’s called word of mouth and it has been important in image creation and decision making forever. In our online world we’ve just added more channels through which people can voice their opinions and read the opinions of others. There still is more of this patient generated communications happening offline than online, but online has quantified the opinions and made it more visible (and in some cases more painful) to the medical community.
Doug Pruden, Customer Experience Partners
Dr. Lagu comments makes perfect sense. Patients and their families have many points of interaction with doctors and hospitals. They capture “data” throughout their TOTAL experience. That includes how they are treated as a person as well as what they see, hear, feel, touch and even smell. That doesn’t mean that cure rates aren’t important, but patients generally expect and receive excellent medical diagnosis and treatment in the US without understanding the technology or the procedures. Instead, the inability to find safe parking, showing up for an appointment on time yet sitting in an office and waiting for an hour, having doctors and staff that don’t explain what’s happening, and yes even the noise level and color of the paint on the walls are the experience and become the story. It’s what they speak and write about to others and therefore what drives image and future patient business.
Doug Pruden, Customer Experience Partners
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I think you hit the nail on the head hear Doug. My thought is that many companies, health care or not, could save both time and money by simply tracking social media better to get reviews of people's experience, rather than trying to give out survey cards that most people don't bother taking the time to fill out.
I think if sites are constructed thoughfully, so, that meaningful information is shared, it can certainly supplement all the information that someone might need to make a decision. And, like everything in life – there will be good and bad information, and, you need to weigh all of it carefully. The decision you make as a result of your experiences, your gut, and, a broad base of information is ultimately your own.
Good thoughts, Cindy. Do you have a go-to site when it comes to health care information, or do you pull from a variety of places?
Interesting take, Michael. I too will be curious as to how the health reform law may change how physicians respond to patients.
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