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Zagat Comes To Health Care...

...and, predictably, physicians hate the idea of being rated like, well, restaurants and hotels. Eeek!
"Arthur Caplan, director of the Center for Bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania, said he was skeptical about open forums evaluating doctors.

“There is no correlation between a doctor being an inept danger to the patient and his popularity,” Professor Caplan said. Reviewing doctors is “a recipe for disaster,” he said."
I'm not sure consumers are all that good at evaluating bacteria counts in restaurant kitchens or fire-safety systems in hotels either, and yet somehow life goes on...as will this debate.

Meanwhile, web entrepreneur James Currier is developing Medpedia, a free, online medical encyclopedia. Contributors will be limited to trained medical professionals, probably one reason this effort is garnering significant support from the medical community.
"(Currier...) has high hopes for the potential of the service to revitalize attitudes toward health care. Patients need to take more active roles in the health care process, he said, which is why he wants to eventually add procedural guides to help patients prepare for surgeries and treatments, recommended questions for patients to ask their doctors, average procedural costs and informational videos. Medpedia will also contain debate pages housed separately from the neutral information pages. That way, physicians can engage in academic dialogues about hot issues such as whether or not local drinking water should be supplemented with folic acid...

"Medpedia could also play a role in revamping the physician referral system. The site has a built-in social networking directory modeled after LinkedIn for medical professionals to help patients get a broader view of specialists in their geographical areas."
Currier sees an entire new generation of Web 2.0-savvy physicians emerging onto the scene, and figures they - and their patients - will be comfortable tapping into the power of the collective.

I think he's right and it's nice to see someone acting on a belief that health care consumers possess at least some basic level of decision-making ability. Striking a blow against the pervasive "patients are nitwits" philosophy is always a good thing.

UPDATE: Paul Levy continues the discussion over at "Running A Hospital."


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