1. Neurology

Category Archives: Neurology

1 out of 6 doctors has been rated on a physician-rating website: are you one of them?

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The current usage of physician-rating websites is still low but is increasing. International data show that 1 out of 6 physicians has been rated, and approximately 90% of all ratings on physician-rating websites were positive.

What Percentage of Physicians Has Been Rated?

Data for US physicians obtained from RateMDs showed that 16% of physicians were assessed by January 2010 (112,000 out of approx. 700,000).

What Is the Average Number of Ratings on Physician-Rating Websites?

Nearly half of the physicians had only a single rating on RateMDs in 2010, and the number of physicians with five or more ratings was 12.5%

Although often a concern, the authors of this meta-analysis could not find any evidence of "doctor-bashing".

How Should Physicians Deal With Physician-Rating Websites?

Physicians should not ignore these websites, but rather, monitor the information available and use it for internal and external purpose.

Physicians should perform “self-audits” on popular physician-rating websites to search for available information. It may be helpful if a staff member monitors these sites on a regular basis.

If nothing else, physician-rating websites often provide incorrect demographic information (eg, incorrect address, links to old practices, opening hours), which should be corrected.

Physicians should use the ratings in order to evaluate their patients’ satisfaction. Patients’ true thoughts on what makes a good doctor, what they value, etc., can be understood.

In the case of negative reviews, it is best not to respond online to try to refute the negative review point by point.

What Recommendations Can Be Made for Improvement of Physician-Rating Websites?

Some authors discuss whether a simple One Feedback Question containing a single question such as “Would you recommend Dr X to a loved one?” may be as useful as the multitude of specific questions.

Alemi et al suggest a 2-question survey: the “Minute Survey”. The first question asks patients to rate their overall experience. The second question asks: “Tell us what worked well and what needs improvement”.

References:

Eight Questions About Physician-Rating Websites - JMIR 2013 http://bit.ly/12ifjXA
Image source: RateMDs.com.

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5 Tips to Stay Up-to-Date with Medical Literature

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There is an old saying: "How do you eat in elephant? In small bites." The same rule probably applies to staying current with the ever expanding avalanche of medical literature. You can try the following approach:

1. RSS Feeds for Journals.

Subscribe to the RSS feeds of the "Big Five" medical journals (NEJM, JAMA, BMJ, Lancet and Annals) plus 2-3 subpecialty journals in your field of interest. Any of the many RSS readers would do. I use RSS Owl. PeRSSonalized Medicine by Webicina.com was one of the first services to arrange the medical journal feeds in a visually appealing way and make RSS consumption user-friendly. Feedly is one of the most popular online RSS readers.

Try to read the journal on the day it is published online, for example, NEJM and JAMA on Wednesdays, BMJ in Fridays, etc.

2. Podcasts.

Listen to journal podcasts. Many applications are available for desktop and smartphones. All major journals have weekly or monthly podcasts.

3. Persistent Searches.

Subscribe to RSS feeds for "persistent searches" in Pubmed and Google. For example, choose a search term in your field of interest, run the search in Pubmed, then subscribe to the feed for the search. The same process can be repeated with Google News and Google Alerts.


Image source: U.S. National Library of Medicine.

4. Text-to-speech (TTS).

Use text-to-speech to listen to articles you do not have time to read. For example, you can save your articles in the Pocket app for Android and listen to them later.

5. Blogs and Twitter accounts.

Subscribe to high-quality medical blogs and Twitter accounts in your field of interest -- they often review many of the important new articles.

Here is an example of the allergists on Twitter:

This is a list of the allergists who are planning to use Twitter to post updates from the 2013 #AAAAI meeting. The list is open for edit, please feel free to add your own info.

Related reading

How to stay up-to-date with RSS in medicine - presentation from the free Social MEDia Course http://j.mp/Hale12
Not a Medical Course, but a Life Course (somewhat vague advice) http://goo.gl/mDMsr - Here are 5 practical tips:  http://goo.gl/n5rbw
Medical journals that use social media (spreadsheet). Body in Mind, 2011.
Image source: OpenClipArt, public domain.

Note: This is an update of a 2008 article.

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  1. Neurology