Yelp Is Becoming a Reputable Resource for Patients
Just as consumers are becoming more empowered in their buying habits with online review websites, patients are now also able to turn to public reviews of hospitals on which to base their healthcare decisions.
Arguably the largest public review forum, Yelp, has been a go-to resource to gain first-hand insight on products and services: real reviews from real people. Why have healthcare clinics and hospitals been excluded thus far?
Healthcare and hospital reviews are increasingly showing up on Yelp. There is still a ways to go before we can rely exclusively on Yelp to ensure the safest care and the best facilities. As human habit suggests, patients and customers tend to report reviews when they've received excellent or very poor service. This obviously leaves the decision making up to the individual, but allows them to use the reviews at their discretion.
The upside of using Yelp to choose a healthcare facility is the consumer-friendly nature of Yelp; it is straightforward. This also addresses why HCAHPS and CMS score reporting isn't enough and from where the need for a consumer-based rating system comes. While regulatory scores are public, it is a cumbersome task for a patient to find and compare this information.
So, yes, public consumer review websites are helpful: "The Manhattan Institute, a New York–based think tank, found that state hospitals with higher Yelp ratings were more likely to have lower rates of potentially preventable readmissions." And this trend will only continue to become an even more reputable resource for healthcare consumers.
Source: Modern Healthcare
Medical Errors... Still! Why?
Maybe more importantly - why aren't we putting more resources into understanding how to reduce them - an important question posed by Dr. Martin Makary.
Dr. Martin Makary is the John Hopkins researcher who wrote the 2016 BMJ article on medical errors analysis. The article was written to further analyze and understand why medical error research as well as interventions were still limited. The biggest take-away: medical errors are not recorded as cause of death. Medical research is largely based on data... no data, no research.
This answers our first question, why are medical errors still the 3rd leading cause of death? Not enough emphasis has been put on corresponding research. The BMJ article cautiously points out that medical errors have more to do with systematic process errors than negligence on an individual doctor-level.
How do we as a society and industry address this take-away? We must insist that capturing medical error data is imperative to addressing the issue. If and when medical errors are legally eligible to be used as cause of death, we will begin to see data, from which research will follow.
Source: PSQH
Clinical Health Coaches: Reducing Readmissions
The Clinical Health Coach is a trained healthcare professional committed to serving patients and healthcare organizations by using population health processes and techniques. They are behavior change specialists who know how to partner with patients to identify health goals that put them on the road to confident self-management of their chronic conditions.
They are also care management facilitators who reinforce the best practices of the healthcare provider with patient-centered resources to improve health, reduce risk and achieve the most desirable outcomes for their patients.
Using health coaches helped a health system in Iowa reduce readmissions of heart failure patients from 30% to 8% in eight months.
This Becker's Hospital Review article was a question and answer format with Dr. William Appelgate, a leading population health expert. The following are quotes from his interview:
"To lower costs, boost patient responsibility and create a healthier country, we need to inspire people through coaching."
"Patients and their families are the greatest underutilized resource in healthcare."
"Patients are more likely to take control of their own health when they feel their opinion is valued. They must be viewed as a resource, not just a challenge."
Source: Becker's