ArticleJournal of medical Internet research2016
Do Health Care Providers Use Online Patient Ratings to Improve the Quality of Care? Results From an Online-Based Cross-Sectional Study.
Article in Journal of medical Internet research, 2016. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 37 papers.
What it found
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The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
37 citing papers in PubMed.
- Does Patient Experience Correlate With Overall Hospital Quality Ratings?Journal of patient experience · 2026Article
- "They Gave Me One Star?" An Analysis of Online Reviews of Hand Surgeons.Journal of hand surgery global online · 2025Article
- What Key Factors Affect Patient Satisfaction on Online Medical Consultation Platforms? A Case Study from China.Healthcare (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Article
- Physician Gender and Patient Perceptions of Interpersonal and Technical Skills in Online Reviews.JAMA network open · 2025Article
- Classification of Patients' Judgments of Their Physicians in Web-Based Written Reviews Using Natural Language Processing: Algorithm Development and Validation.Journal of medical Internet research · 2024Article
- What Patients Say About Their Orthopaedic Hand and Wrist Surgeons: A Qualitative Analysis of Negative Reviews on Yelp.Journal of wrist surgery · 2024Article
- A Taxonomy for Health Information Systems.Journal of medical Internet research · 2024Review
- Using patient comments from a standardised experience survey to investigate their perceptions and prioritise improvement actions: a thematic and syntactic analysis.BMC health services research · 2023Article
- SARS-CoV-2-Related Adaptation Mechanisms of Rehabilitation Clinics Affecting Patient-Centered Care: Qualitative Study of Online Patient Reports.JMIR rehabilitation and assistive technologies · 2023Article
- Factors Associated with the Patient/Client Use of Report Cards, Physician Rating Websites, Social Media, and Google for Hospital and Physician Selection: A Nationwide Survey.Healthcare (Basel, Switzerland) · 2022Article
- Physician Gender, Patient Risk, and Web-Based Reviews: Longitudinal Study of the Relationship Between Physicians' Gender and Their Web-Based Reviews.Journal of medical Internet research · 2022Article
- Patient Experience and Satisfaction in Online Reviews of Obstetric Care: Observational Study.JMIR formative research · 2022Article
- One Decade of Online Patient Feedback: Longitudinal Analysis of Data From a German Physician Rating Website.Journal of medical Internet research · 2021Article
- Digital Footprint of Academic Vascular Surgeons in the Southern United States on Physician Rating Websites: Cross-sectional Evaluation Study.JMIR cardio · 2021Article
- What Patients Value in Physicians: Analyzing Drivers of Patient Satisfaction Using Physician-Rating Website Data.Journal of medical Internet research · 2020Article
- Online patient feedback: a cross-sectional survey of the attitudes and experiences of United Kingdom health care professionals.Journal of health services research & policy · 2019Article
- Quantitative Ratings and Narrative Comments on Swiss Physician Rating Websites: Frequency Analysis.Journal of medical Internet research · 2019Article
- When Similarity Beats Expertise-Differential Effects of Patient and Expert Ratings on Physician Choice: Field and Experimental Study.Journal of medical Internet research · 2019Article
- "But His Yelp Reviews Are Awful!": Analysis of General Surgeons' Yelp Reviews.Journal of medical Internet research · 2019Article
- Reporting of Patient Experience Data on Health Systems' Websites and Commercial Physician-Rating Websites: Mixed-Methods Analysis.Journal of medical Internet research · 2019Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
3 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundPhysician-rating websites have become a popular tool to create more transparency about the quality of health care providers. So far, it remains unknown whether online-based rating websites have the potential to contribute to a better standard of care.
objectiveOur goal was to examine which health care providers use online rating websites and for what purposes, and whether health care providers use online patient ratings to improve patient care.
methodsWe conducted an online-based cross-sectional study by surveying 2360 physicians and other health care providers (September 2015). In addition to descriptive statistics, we performed multilevel logistic regression models to ascertain the effects of providers' demographics as well as report card-related variables on the likelihood that providers implement measures to improve patient care.
resultsOverall, more than half of the responding providers surveyed (54.66%, 1290/2360) used online ratings to derive measures to improve patient care (implemented measures: mean 3.06, SD 2.29). Ophthalmologists (68%, 40/59) and gynecologists (65.4%, 123/188) were most likely to implement any measures. The most widely implemented quality measures were related to communication with patients (28.77%, 679/2360), the appointment scheduling process (23.60%, 557/2360), and office workflow (21.23%, 501/2360). Scaled-survey results had a greater impact on deriving measures than narrative comments. Multilevel logistic regression models revealed medical specialty, the frequency of report card use, and the appraisal of the trustworthiness of scaled-survey ratings to be significantly associated predictors for implementing measures to improve patient care because of online ratings.
conclusionsOur results suggest that online ratings displayed on physician-rating websites have an impact on patient care. Despite the limitations of our study and unintended consequences of physician-rating websites, they still may have the potential to improve patient care.
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What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.