About Physician Comments and Ratings

Johns Hopkins Medicine is committed to improving the health of the community and the world. Understanding the experience of our patients is critical to provide the highest level of care.

Understanding the Patient Experience with their Physician

Following scheduled appointments, we provide patients the opportunity to share their feedback on all aspects of their experience using a standardized survey that enables us to understand areas of strength, opportunities for improvement, and the means to continuously plan and evaluate the impact of our efforts.

That survey includes five questions regarding patients’ perceptions of the care received from healthcare providers.

1. Did the physician explain things in a way that was easy to understand?
2. Did the physician listen carefully to you?
3. Did the physician seem to know important information about your medical history?
4. Did the physician show respect for what you had to say?
5. Did the physician spend enough time with you?

Sharing Patient Feedback Transparently with the Public

In 2018, Johns Hopkins piloted a program to share the data transparently with the public on the profiles of roughly 200 Johns Hopkins clinicians from six different departments and divisions. In 2024, we expanded this program to the entire Johns Hopkins Health System.

The survey results appear on individual clinician profiles of any clinician who has received 30 or more responses to the patient survey over the last twelve months. These include a few key data points:

1. The overall score, representing the average of all five responses to the questions on the survey. Responses are measured on a scale of 1 to 5, with 5 being the best score.
2. A star rating to visually represent the overall score.
3. Comments and feedback from our patients, provided directly while completing the survey.

We are committed to posting both positive and negative feedback. However, we do not post comments that are libelous, slanderous, discriminatory, profane or that risk the privacy of our patients. Patient comments are de-identified for confidentiality and privacy. Using these criteria, we post 96 percent of all comments received.

If any portion of a comment meets the exclusion criteria described above, the entire comment is excluded from the review. Published comments are not edited in any way.

Why Doesn’t Every Physician Present Star Ratings and Comments?

All schedulable Johns Hopkins clinicians are included in this program. None can opt out. However, not every single profile will display the star ratings and comments.

First, this survey method is not used to evaluate clinicians unless the appointment had been scheduled and completed. The clinician portion of the survey is not administered in specific settings – like the Emergency Room, ambulatory surgery or inpatient – where physician and patient encounters may be organic in nature. This helps us to ensure that any patient data is associated with the correct clinician.

Second, some clinicians have not have received 30 responses to the survey over the last twelve months. While we use every single comment as part of our internal processes to assess and understand quality of care, we want to ensure that the data presented to the public presents a complete picture of the experience with each clinician. Data is updated to reflect the last 12 months of care provided by each clinician, provided they have received at least 30 responses to the survey during that time.