Report: Positive web-based ratings associated with higher quality care
Many providers are skeptical of the growing trend among patients to rate healthcare experiences via web-based rating sites, but recognizing patients’ desires to provide feedback, the British National Health Service (NHS) established a website that allows patients to rate care using metrics meaningful to providers and it has produced promising results, according to research published Feb. 13 by the Archives of Internal Medicine.
In 2008, the NHS unveiled its NHS Choices website, which allows patients to rate experiences with healthcare providers across several dimensions of quality using rating scales and commentary.
To determine the relationship between patient rankings and some objective quality measures, such as mortality and infection rates, researchers examined 10,274 ratings posted on the NHS Choices website from Jan. 1, 2009, to Dec. 31, 2010, and compared them to clinical outcomes at 146 of the hospitals rated.
Overall, 68 percent of the patients who provided rankings would recommend the hospital where they received treatment to a friend and positive recommendations of hospitals were significantly associated with lower standardized mortality ratios, lower mortality from high-risk conditions and lower readmission rates. However, positive recommendations were not associated with mortality rates among inpatients with serious treatable complications requiring surgery nor with mortality from low-risk conditions. Additionally, hospitals with better cleanliness ratings were associated with lower infection rates.
The results “suggest that discretionary patient ratings, obtained through a website, may be a more useful tool than previously considered for both patients and healthcare workers,” according to researcher Felix Greaves, BMBCh, of the Imperial College London and his colleagues. “If patients are making choices based on this information, they can be reassured that the ratings are not entirely misleading and may be providing relevant information about healthcare quality."
“The use of web-based patient ratings has become common in other industries such as hotels and restaurants, and consumers value these rankings in making choices,” Greaves concluded. “We believe that the information provided by these websites, although flawed, represents a potentially important development in the measurement of healthcare quality."
In 2008, the NHS unveiled its NHS Choices website, which allows patients to rate experiences with healthcare providers across several dimensions of quality using rating scales and commentary.
To determine the relationship between patient rankings and some objective quality measures, such as mortality and infection rates, researchers examined 10,274 ratings posted on the NHS Choices website from Jan. 1, 2009, to Dec. 31, 2010, and compared them to clinical outcomes at 146 of the hospitals rated.
Overall, 68 percent of the patients who provided rankings would recommend the hospital where they received treatment to a friend and positive recommendations of hospitals were significantly associated with lower standardized mortality ratios, lower mortality from high-risk conditions and lower readmission rates. However, positive recommendations were not associated with mortality rates among inpatients with serious treatable complications requiring surgery nor with mortality from low-risk conditions. Additionally, hospitals with better cleanliness ratings were associated with lower infection rates.
The results “suggest that discretionary patient ratings, obtained through a website, may be a more useful tool than previously considered for both patients and healthcare workers,” according to researcher Felix Greaves, BMBCh, of the Imperial College London and his colleagues. “If patients are making choices based on this information, they can be reassured that the ratings are not entirely misleading and may be providing relevant information about healthcare quality."
“The use of web-based patient ratings has become common in other industries such as hotels and restaurants, and consumers value these rankings in making choices,” Greaves concluded. “We believe that the information provided by these websites, although flawed, represents a potentially important development in the measurement of healthcare quality."