The Internet can provide us with a wealth of reviews of almost every kind of local establishment, from restaurants to day care centers. We can use these reviews as the basis for making choices. Yet, it can still be difficult to find detailed data about hospitals. This is unfortunate because when it comes to choosing a health care facility for ourselves and our family members, we should be privy to as many facts and figures as possible.
But there may be good news for those who wish to get a detailed look at a hospital they are considering checking into. Recently, the online review site Yelp teamed up with an organization called ProPublica to help provide consumers with helpful information.
Yelp users will now be able to access data on medical clinics, dialysis clinics, hospitals and assisted living homes. While Yelp’s users have been able to find reviews on health care facilities in the past, they will also find that supplemental information will accompany the reviews. This new data, provided by ProPublica, will describe such things as the quality of communication a hospital’s doctors provide to patients and ER wait time.
Certainly it is a good idea to research any hospital you are considering checking yourself or a loved one into. But even if a hospital or another care facility receives high marks on Yelp, this is no guarantee you will get the care you deserve. A patient can be injured in any number of ways during a hospital stay. The patient could be given a misdiagnosis or receive delayed assistance.
If you or someone in your family should suffer an injury due to the negligence on behalf of a member of a hospital’s staff, you may want to consult with an Arizona medical malpractice attorney. The attorney could look into the possibility of pursuing a claim for compensation.
Source: The Columbus Dispatch, “How long is ER’s wait time? Yelp ready to tell consumers,” Lena H. Sun, Aug. 10, 2015