Do Crowdsourced Hospital Ratings Coincide with Hospital Compare Measures of Clinical and Nonclinical Quality?

ABSTRACT

OBJECTIVE: To determine the consistency with which government-issued hospital quality ratings and crowdsourced ratings on social media sites identify hospital quality. DATA SOURCES Hospital ratings from Facebook, Google, and Yelp were linked with Hospital Compare (HC) measures. STUDY DESIGN: Fixed-effects linear regression model. PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: Among crowdsourcing sites' best-ranked hospitals, 50-60% were also the best ranked on HC's overall and patient experience ratings; 20% ranked as the worst. Best-ranked hospitals had significantly better clinical quality scores than worst ranked hospitals, but were not more likely to be the highest rated in terms of HC's clinical quality measures alone. CONCLUSIONS: Crowdsourcing sites and HC provide comparable information on patient experience; scores were less consistent in terms of risk-adjusted measures of patient safety and clinical quality.