How Physician Reviews Can Improve Health Care

If a person thinks that physician reviews or medical websites are just a place for people to vent about unsatisfactory experiences, they should think again. The widespread use of the Internet and the readily available access by many via palm held devices has made information available 24/7. This can be a wonderful thing. In the old days, it could be an arduous process to research many things, health care options included. People had to ask multiple friends, family and neighbors. Libraries or consumer report magazines had to be combed in order to find information. Licensing boards had to be solicited for info. Nowadays, the click of a keyboard and mouse can deliver tons of tidbits and factoids right onto a person’s laptop screen. Online physician reviews can improve medical care in the following ways:

Various opinions posted: Instead of simply getting opinions from those in your most intimate circle, the internet websites allow a prospective patient to view lots of diverse posts about past patient experiences. It’s always best, of course, to check out websites that are reputable, that have multiple posts and that do not allow anonymous postings. If a person really means what they say, they need to own it by signing their name.

Patients better educated about their own health: Computers have also allowed individuals to research their symptoms and to compare and contrast what they’ve learned from their doctors. No one knows his or her own body better than the patient. Gathering information allows the patient to ask better questions and give more detailed specifics to their doctors so that more accurate diagnoses and treatments are offered up.

Specialists can be found: Most people can recommend a general practitioner to a friend or relative. Finding someone who has firsthand knowledge about a specialist is another story. In order to be able to recommend a cardiologist or oncologist, a person would need to have had direct experiences with heart disease or cancer. Perusing doctor ratings websites will allow a person to find the specialist, which is required by his or her circumstances.

Doctors can improve quality of care by reading reports about themselves: Physicians have been checking out their own reviews in order to improve their quality of care. The vast majority of health care practitioners care deeply about their patients and want to heal them. The reality of their work-a-day world; however, is that they may be rushed or preoccupied by some circumstance, which may equate to their not being fully present for a person. They may not even realize that they were doing it. A patient may post about having to wait in the waiting room for hours or being treated rudely by a receptionist. If a doc discovers this via the Internet or from the patients themselves, this provides an opportunity for change to occur.

Medical care can be improved in various ways due to the current widespread use of the computer. This is true due to the abundance of physician reviews that are posted on websites as well as patients using google to interpret their symptoms in order to become better informed.