Yelp announced that more than 25,000 hospitals, nursing homes and dialysis clinics in the United States listed on the site will have beefed up profiles with more data.
The sources of data will be provided by ProPublica, a New York public interest journalism nonprofit and Medicare.gov, said Yelp. The added information will include consumer reviews and health statistics.
The Yelp statement said, “Now the millions of consumers who use Yelp…have even more information at their fingertips when they are in the midst of the most critical life decisions, like which hospital to choose for a sick child or which nursing home will provide the best care for aging parents.”
For now, the available health information includes roughly 4,600 hospitals, 15,000 nursing homes and 6,300 dialysis centers. For hospitals, ER wait times, doctor communication, quietness of hospital hallways and business hours are listed. A link to Medicare.gov’s Hospital Compare site is linked for further information.
Medicare.gov’s Hospital Compare is a way to evaluate nearby hospital on numerous quality measures, ranging from death and hospital readmission rates to patient satisfaction. This information can also be compared against state and national standards.
Pro Publica senior reporter Charles Ornstein told NPR’s Morning Edition that doctors’ and dentists’ bedside manner matters: “Indeed, doctors and health professionals everywhere could learn a valuable lesson from the archives of Yelp: Your officious personality or brusque office staff can sink your reputation even if your professional skills are just fine.”
The interview republished on NPR’s website sparked commenters questioning whether a doctor’s personal demeanor has to do with their abilities. Also, patients generally want doctors to do something, even prescribe an unneeded antibiotic or order expensive tests.
Another consideration is hospitals are held by certain standards of patient satisfaction and may lose money if those benchmarks aren’t met. Hospitals may be pressured to game satisfaction scores, which come from a standardized test — Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems.
Hospital Compare is the federal government’s answer to U.S. News and World Report, in allowing consumers to browse their local hospital on various indicators of quality from surgery complications to whether nurses were helpful.
A fear raised by numerous physicians, advocates and patients themselves is that doctors are incentivized to make patients happy, rather than well. Some hospitals are trying to make their patients satisfied by adding amenities such as valet parking, room-service meals and even VIP lounges and “loyalty programs,” according to The Atlantic.
Yelp has had its share of critics who have claimed the company encourages businesses to buy advertising dollars for higher rankings. An appeals court ruling in 2014 found no evidence of Yelp’s manipulation, the fact remains is that this is a tech company with a secret algorithm and shareholders and profits to consider.
Another challenge, as raised by an editorial in The Daily Dot, is how to handle critics who wish to use reviews to air grievances with health providers, as what happened on Yelp after Joan Rivers’ death.
Yelp reports on its website that it gets 142 million unique visitors per month, almost 25 percent are over age 55. The site identifies its audience as: “Tech-savvy and curious, they are also active travelers, foodies and trendsetters who want to discover what’s new in shopping and entertainment trends.”
