The organization is not just listening to feedback; it is actively embracing it, making that feedback public by launching a pilot to add Press Ganey comments and star ratings to a select number of physician profiles.

Some might ask: “Aren’t there already enough public ‘feedback’ options about physicians through sites such as Healthgrades that often contain inaccuracies and negative reviews?” That’s just the point, says Dalal Haldeman, senior vice president of marketing and communications.

Haldeman and Aaron Watkins, senior director of Internet strategy, have been spearheading these important conversations with colleagues. Their intention is to pilot the inclusion of patient feedback on 200 physician profiles. The project was the subject of a presentation Haldeman and Watkins gave at the Healthcare Marketing and Physician Strategies Summit in April. 

Watkins also recently met with University of Utah leadership, which took the step of putting Press Ganey patient reviews — stars and comments — on their online physician profiles beginning in 2009. University of Utah physicians have since seen dramatic increases in their Press Ganey satisfaction scores — from 4 percent in the top 10th percentile to 46 percent in just four years, according to the Harvard Business Review. “The lesson to draw from this,” says Haldeman, “is that owning the patient connection through transparency can improve the delivery of care.”

Such actions can help drown out the reviews that are just plain wrong. Watkins notes similarities to the current shift of the Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems’ survey to a simple a five-star rating method.