This time, I'd like to talk about choosing a medical institution.
What do you use as a reference when you go to see a doctor?
The Internet and word-of-mouth sites provide a wide variety of information these days, but it is difficult to make a decision based on these sources.
I would like to introduce a study that investigated what patients refer to when choosing a medical institution.
Contents of the study
Physician Rating Web Sites (PRWs) are designed to publicly announce information about physicians while bringing transparency to the information.
This study aims to identify the impact PRWs have on patients' choices of orthopedic surgeons, as well as to stratify patients' physician preferences by various demographic characteristics.
The study will be conducted in an orthopedic clinic with an outpatient clinic in a suburban area.All patients between the ages of 18 and 89 who presented for an appointment were asked to participate.
The survey questions were designed to identify patient demographics and the sources of information patients used to select their surgeon.
As a result of the survey, 104 patients had been included in the study and had completed the survey.
It appears that the study population was primarily 51-70 years old (50.0%), female (60.6%), and Caucasian (84.6%).
122 patients (98.1%) indicated that the reputation of the doctor was important.
Seventy-five patients (72.1%) reported hearing about the surgeon through a physician referral, but only two patients (1.9%) used an online search engine.
Sixty-six patients (63.5%) stated that physician referrals were the most reliable.
Only 10 patients (9.6%) used PRW to select a surgeon, most of whom were under the age of 50.
Authors' conclusions
Despite the increase in digital information exchange platforms, PRWs are not commonly used by suburban orthopedic hand patients to exchange or select information about hand surgeons. Patients still rely primarily on physician referrals and word of mouth from family and friends to select a surgeon.
Malige A, Matullo KS. The Influence of Physician-Rating Websites on Patient Physician Preference. Clin Orthop Surg. 2020;12(2):238-244. doi:10.4055 /cios19103
Conclusion
From a medical professional's point of view, why don't we use a website called "xxx" to gather word of mouth to increase the number of patients? It is not cost effective to use such sites.
From a patient's point of view, it's not hard to see why, since many of us are referred to hospitals by acquaintances or referrals from hospitals, so this result makes sense.
However, in this study, it was examined that the age group was involved in the reason for the high number of consultations by word of mouth, and it was also found that the younger people in the study browsed the website.This means that in the next few years, there is a possibility that results like this will be reversed.
So let's make sure we start taking measures against the web now! However, because of the declining birthrate and aging population, we cannot give a quick and easy answer.
However, due to the declining birthrate and aging population, we cannot give a quick and easy answer to this question. I think that healthcare professionals who use these web services should properly measure the effectiveness and continue to implement or review them.
