Collateral Damage? Consequences of Radically Transparent Reviews in Health Care

摘要

Over the past few years, hospitals and health systems have increasingly begun to share patient reviews and ratings of physicians and other health care professionals on their own public websites or patient portals. Most proponents of this “radical transparency” movement—which has been embraced by more than 40 hospitals and health systems —contend that the disclosure of information on patient satisfaction is inevitable, and we are past the stage of debating whether reviews and ratings should be made publicly available. This claim may not be completely true in health care, as evidenced by a recent Change.org petition requesting the immediate withdrawal of physician and provider reviews from online review sites such as Yelp, Healthgrades, and Vitals.com. The petition, which argues that online reviews are unfair because health care providers cannot respond to unfavorable reviews because of HIPAA and medical privacy laws, has amassed more than 44,000 signatures.