Back in April I asked if there was a Yelp for hospitals. I didn’t really get an answer, but just today I ran across this quote from Consumer Reports by way of the blog Overcoming Bias:
Fifty-nine percent of patients in our survey did not enter the hospital through the emergency room, so they might have had a choice of which hospital to go. But 65 percent [of these] simply went to the hospital their physician recommended or was affiliated with. Forty percent chose a hospital for its location, and 28 percent because it was in their health plan’s network. (Respondents were asked for their top three reasons.) Only 11 percent chose the hospital for its record in treating their condition, and only 2 percent on the basis of the hospital’s ratings in books or magazines or online. (Consumer Reports, September 2009, “Patients Beware,” pp. 18-23.)
That 2 percent number surprises me, but not really. I mean I would guess it’s the same for doctors, only difference is we always asks friends/family/coworkers for recommendations in that sphere. I would guess most people don’t check reviews on doctors before choosing them, instead relying on that word of mouth. But how come there is no word of mouth for hospitals? My guess is that it just doesn’t occur to most people that they can choose.
“Only 11 percent chose the hospital for its record in treating their condition, and only 2 percent on the basis of the hospital’s ratings in books or magazines or online.”
How do they know what the hospital’s record in treating their condition is, unless they look it up somewhere?
I’m surprised I didn’t respond to your original post, because when I was researching social media x hospitals for an online marketing agency, I found a bunch of hospitals and physicians networks on Yelp. just do a search on Yelp for Kaiser, John Muir Health, Sutter Health, or your hospital/network of choice…
as for rating sites dedicated specifically to hospitals, there are a few, e.g. HealthGrades.com and HospitalCompare.HHS.gov. (and of course there are rating sites specifically for doctors, e.g. RateMyDoctor.net, RateMDs.com, among others.)
“I mean I would guess it’s the same for doctors, only difference is we always asks friends/family/coworkers for recommendations in that sphere.”
now this is an interesting yet arguable speculation, and one that is highly relevant to all the algorithmic vs. social search warring that’s going on right now. the question is: who do we consult (i.e. which types of search do we use) for which types of information? attempting an answer requires identifying types of search, types of information, and elaborating a model. a related comment I left on a WIRED article is pasted below….
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WIRED: “Facebook thinks its members will turn to their friends – rather than Google’s algorithms – to navigate the web.” (http://www.wired.com/techbiz/it/magazine/17-07/ff_facebookwall)
sgerson: I see this pattern often: current strategy exists, new strategy emerges, people decide new strategy is better in some meaningless absolute sense and wonder whether it will entirely usurp current strategy, new strategy is experimented with, and ultimately integrated into diversifying portfolio of strategies – which includes both new and old. Rinse, dry, repeat. Print publishing will not die, but simply renegotiate its function with online publishing. Similarly, the non-social web (or non-social venues on the web) will not die, but simply renegotiate its function with the social web. (Oh and rarely do strategies go entirely extinct; they may continue existing but change their function to artsy/historical artifacts, e.g. typewriters.) When I’m looking for good restaurants or unique Valentine’s Day gifts, it may make sense to ask friends. But when I want to learn about some obscure surgery that my friends know nothing about, it may not (in this case, it may make more sense to ask an expert community). And when I want to learn about sex change operations because I’m transgender, which is something my parents and most folks in my life don’t know, it may make sense to be entirely anonymous. Facebook is articulating the social side of the spectrum of our experience of the web, but ultimately, it’s just making online life more similar to offline life. Or rather, more similar to life – in which we choose to be social, non, and/or anonymous, depending on the circumstances. So the juicy question for me is: under which circumstances/for which types of information interaction [clearly not sure how to frame this question] to use which type of web [crudely, the spectrum from non-social social]? In other words, the juice is in developing an actual model, vs. indiscriminately painting the social web as the future of the web.