Online physician review websites poorly correlate to a validated metric of patient satisfaction.
Jennwood Chen, Angela Presson, Chong Zhang, David Ray, Samuel Finlayson, Robert Glasgow
Author Information
Jennwood Chen: Department of General Surgery, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, Utah. Electronic address: jennwood.chen@hsc.utah.edu.
Angela Presson: Department of Study Design & Biostatistics Center, University of Utah Health Sciences Center for Clinical & Translational Science, Salt Lake City, Utah.
Chong Zhang: Department of Study Design & Biostatistics Center, University of Utah Health Sciences Center for Clinical & Translational Science, Salt Lake City, Utah.
David Ray: Department of Outpatient Services, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, Utah.
Samuel Finlayson: Department of General Surgery, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, Utah.
Robert Glasgow: Department of General Surgery, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, Utah.
BACKGROUND: Physician review websites such as Vitals and Healthgrades are becoming an increasingly popular tool for patients to choose providers. We hypothesized that the scores of these surveys poorly represent the true value of patient satisfaction when compared to a validated survey instrument. METHODS: Answers from Vitals and Healthgrades online surveys were compared to the Press Ganey Medical Practice Survey (PGMPS) for 200 faculty members at a university hospital for FY15. Weighted Pearson's correlation was used to compare Healthgrades and Vitals to PGMPS. RESULTS: While statistically significant, both Vitals and Healthgrades had very low correlations with the PGMPS with weighted coefficients of 0.18 (95% confidence interval: 0.02-0.34, P = 0.025) and 0.27 (95% confidence interval: 0.12-0.42, P < 0.001), respectively. CONCLUSIONS: Online physician rating websites such as Vitals and Healthgrades poorly correlate with the PGMPS, a validated measure of patient satisfaction. patients should be aware of these limitations and, consequently, should have access to the most accurate measure of patient satisfaction.
