Health Leaders: Yelp Ratings of Healthcare Facilities May Reveal Death Rate Disparities

From Health Leaders: U.S. counties with healthcare facilities with the greatest share of 1-star Yelp reviews had the highest death rates, and a difference of just one point—roughly one star—between counties’ average scores could indicate a mortality rate that is better or worse by dozens of lives, according to researchers at the Penn Medicine Center for Digital Health. Yelp is a review website that uses a five-star rating system to evaluate businesses, with one start rating the lowest and five stars rating the highest. “Many of the facilities that provide essential care may not otherwise have standardized measures or approaches to collect data about patients’ experience of care. This is a missed opportunity,” the study’s senior author, Raina Merchant, MD, director of the Center for Digital Health and a professor of emergency medicine in the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, said in a press release. Read the full story in Health Leaders.