Patients’ Ratings of Family Physician Practices on the Internet: Usage and Associations With Conventional Measures of Quality in the English National Health Service

BackgroundPatients are increasingly rating their family physicians on the Internet in the same way as they might rate a hotel on TripAdvisor or a seller on eBay, despite physicians’ concerns about this process. ObjectiveThis study aims to examine the usage of NHS Choices, a government website that encourages patients to rate the quality of family practices in England, and associations between web-based patient ratings and conventional measures of patient experience and clinical quality in primary care. MethodsWe obtained all (16,952) ratings of family practices posted on NHS Choices between October 2009 and December 2010. We examined associations between patient ratings and family practice and population characteristics. Associations between ratings and survey measures of patient experience and clinical outcomes were examined. Results61% of the 8089 family practices in England were rated, and 69% of ratings would recommend their family practice. Practices serving younger, less deprived, and more densely populated areas were more likely to be rated. There were moderate associations with survey measures of patient experience (Spearman ρ 0.37−0.48, P