Martin Emmert*, Friedrich-Alexander-University of Erlangen-Nürnberg, School of Business and Economics, Nuremberg, Germany Uwe Sander*, University of Applied Sciences Hannover, Hannover, Germany Veit Wambach, Healthcare Network “Quality and Efficiency”, Nuremberg, Germany Track: Research Presentation Topic: Participatory health care Presentation Type: Oral presentation Submission Type: Single Presentation Building: Mermaid Room: Room 4 - Queenshithe Date: 2013-09-24 02:00 PM – 03:30 PM Last modified: 2013-09-25

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Background
Physician-rating websites (PRWs) are currently gaining in popularity with the aim to increase transparency in the health care system. However, there is little published evidence about the number, distribution, nature, and results of available ratings. There is even less knowledge regarding the content of patient narratives.
Objective:
The objective of the present study was to investigate the current status of online physician evaluations on German PRWs. Therefore, we studied 106 physicians from the Integrated Healthcare Network “Quality and Efficiency”, located in Nuremberg, Bavaria. Furthermore, the study aims to allow for a comparison between leading German PRWs.
Methods:
In a first step, the five most frequently used German PRWs were chosen according to their traffic rank. Afterwards, data was collected for the 106 physicians on the five PRWs. This included results from numerical ratings as well as information available in patient narrative comments. Two authors independently carried out the data collection (date of data collection 11/2012). Next, analysis was conducted addressing ten literature-based issues, (1) number of identified physicians, (2) number of rated physicians, (3) number of physicians with at least 5/10 ratings, (4) completeness of ratings, (5) mean ratings, (6) distribution of ratings in best/average/worst rating category, (7) number of physicians with narrative comments, (8) distribution of narrative comments through the PRWs, (9) categorization of narrative comments into positive/neutral/negative, and (10) mean length of narrative comments in terms of word numbers.
Results:
The following German PRWs were considered: Arztauskunft, Imedo, Jameda, DocInsider, and the Weiße Liste. It could be shown that 96% of all physicians could be identified on the websites. On average, 50% of all physicians were rated at least once. However, great differences between the websites could be detected (Min 29%, Max 81%). The percentage of physicians with at least 5 respectively 10 ratings was calculated to be 16% respectively 9%. A mean of 3.08 ratings per physicians could be counted (range 0.45 – 9.03, SD 3.71). Most ratings were positive; approximately 75% could be assigned to the best rating category and only 5% to the worst rating category. Mean length of narrative comments was 28 words, 86% were favorable. Furthermore, we could not find any evidence of “doctor-bashing” or defamation although often concerned.
Conclusions:
Compared to previously published studies, it seems that the number of online evaluations on German PRWs has been increasing. Both, the mean number of ratings as well as the percentage of rated physicians has further risen. The numbers determined exceed those from the US but, in general, are in line with respect to the nature and results of the ratings. However, our findings have to be interpreted with cautious since our analyzed is based on a sample of a certain German region.