Providers pay more attention to online reviews
June 06, 2015
As another sign of a changing industry, The Washington Post published an article about hospitals increasingly monitoring their online reviews. Formerly scorned or ignored, online reviews have increasingly garnered attention from some providers, either because they are seen as a source of feedback or more likely, because they affect providers' bottom lines.
Online reviews used to be widely dismissed by the medical community (and in some cases suppressed). Then, some business-savvy providers started paying attention to them, and then even more providers started cultivating their online reputations. Now, some healthcare systems even dedicate an entire person's time to managing such reputations. We currently see a dearth of medical quality information about providers; perhaps that will trend in a similar fashion over time.