Hospital rating websites play a minor role for uro-oncologic patients when choosing a hospital for major surgery: results of the German multicenter NAVIGATOR-study

[Comparison of hospital rating websites among each other and with data from hospital quality reports and quality assurance based on routine data]

BACKGROUND

In addition to the objectifiable treatment quality, patients' perspectives are gaining relevance.

OBJECTIVE

This study aimed to characterize available hospital rating websites (HRW) with regards to patient ratings and to compare them with data from hospital quality reports and quality assurance based on routine data (QSR) for urological departments.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

After a structured online search for HRWs, websites were compared based on patient ratings from the 10 urologic departments with the largest intervention rates in 2021 using generalized estimated equations. For radical prostatectomy (RPE), quantitative comparison of patient ratings (klinikbewertungen.de) and QSR-based ratings was performed using Spearman's rank correlation.

RESULTS

Of 1845 hits, 25 portals were analyzed. The department-wise comparison of HRWs resulted in significantly different patient ratings (p < 0.001). Patient ratings (klinikbewertungen.de) and QSR data (AOK-Gesundheitsnavigator) showed no significant correlation. An internal comparison of QSR data and patient ratings from the AOK-Gesundheitsnavigator on RPE showed a significant negative correlation between the overall rating and unplanned reoperations (r = -0.81) or other complications (r = -0.91). There was no significant correlation with the recommendation rate by patients.

CONCLUSION

Hospital rating websites show considerable heterogeneity regarding patient ratings of the same urology department in different portals. Furthermore, based on the selected examples, there seems to be no correlation between subjective and objective evaluations between different websites or within one website.