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Physicians, hospitals face ProPublica pressure

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Yelp, the consumer review site and mobile app,  is expanding its pages with quality-assessment data  about physicians and hospitals from the nonprofit investigative-journalism group ProPublica.

The Sacramento Bee reports that ProPublica “will provide quarterly updates on health services at 4,600 hospitals, 15,000 nursing homes and 6,300 dialysis clinics in the United States, using data it has compiled from the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. The information will include emergency department wait times, patient survival rates, incurred fines and physician communication ratings.”

Many in the medical community have complained that the profiles  can give an incomplete picture of hospital and physician performance.

Brian Jensen, regional vice president of the Hospital Council of Northern and Central California, told The Sacramento Bee that the profiles may not capture a complete picture of health services, even with the added quality metrics.

“I would caution that oftentimes, because of the complexities of health care and how it’s measured and all of the different services, it might not always transfer as easily to an application like Yelp as, say, your favorite Chinese restaurant. But consumers should have as much of a say as possible.”

However much physicians and hospital officials  dislike these review services, their numbers will increase.

 

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