Yelp reviews of hospitals cover topics not found in the federal government’s survey of patients’ hospital experiences, according to the results of a study from Perelman School of Medicine researchers at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia.
The study is published in the April issue of Health Affairs. (Readers can access the abstract by going to http://bit.ly/1MAt5rN.)
Researchers compared about 17,000 Yelp reviews of 1,352 hospitals to reviews from the Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (HCAHPS) survey.
While the Yelp reviews included information about seven of the 11 HCAHPS domains, the researchers uncovered 12 more categories covered in the Yelp reviews that are not covered by the HCAHPS survey: cost of hospital visit, insurance and billing, ancillary testing, facilities, amenities, scheduling, compassion of staff, family member care, quality of nursing, quality of staff, quality of technical aspects of care, and specific type of medical care. Two of the top five Yelp categories most strongly associated with negative Yelp review ratings were insurance and billing, and cost of hospital visit. Cost is not covered by HCAHPS domains.