Web based patient feedback

doi:10.1136/bmj.b1377

Published 7 April 2009, doi:10.1136/bmj.b1377
Cite this as: BMJ 2009;338:b1377

Letters

Doctor rating sites

Web based patient feedback

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

For the past four years Patient Opinion has been running a feedbacksite where patients, carers, and staff can share the story oftheir health care in the UK. We focus on services rather thanindividual doctors, and have learnt a lot about the benefitsof this kind of feedback. We agree that web based feedback willhave an important role in the future.¹ Given that web basedcommunication such as email, blogging, and twittering differsgreatly from traditional paper and speech based communication,it is probably unwise to extrapolate too much from studies onthe utility of feedback that looked only at traditional surveyand rating formats.

Web based feedback from patients is coming. How it is collectedand the underlying business model will almost certainly shapehow effective it is. Given the rate at which the web is changing,a range of providers needs to be testing what . . . [Full text of this article]

Paul K Hodgkin, founder¹

¹ Patient Opinion, Sheffield S3 8EN

paul.hodgkin@patientopinion.org.uk