Doesn’t Yelp review restaurants and hotels? Is that where you would also look for information about hospitals and nursing homes?

Yes! Yelp, in partnership with New York’s ProPublica, a nonprofit news organization is now offering reviews updated quarterly for hospitals, nursing homes and dialysis centers. ProPublica compiles information from its own research and from the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services. The data is for 4,600 hospitals, 15,000 nursing homes, and 6,300 dialysis clinics. ProPublica also chooses the metrics and the best way to explain the information on Yelp.

For hospitals, information compares the data to the state average. For example, the quality of a doctor’s communication, emergency room waiting time, and whether the rooms are quiet at night are compared to the state averages of these and other hospital components.

Nursing homes data includes the number of beds in addition to the fines assessed during the last three years.  Serious deficiencies identified will also be included.

Dialysis clinic information incorporates the number of dialysis stations and compares the hospital readmission rate and rate of patient survival to a standard number.Will people choose Yelp when comparing health care data? We’ll see. Open enrollment and Medicare enrollment are just around the corner for many people. Much of the hospital information is available on Medicare’s Hospital Compare web page. But information is often hard to find on Medicare.gov, so the addition of Yelp as a resource should enhance an individual’s ability to select the best option in these areas of the health care world.

 

For additional information, contact EAB HealthWorks.