A web of trust
Released 01/08/2008
With websites for patient feedback causing quite a stir, Matthew Jane reflects on the whether they really are such a zeitgeist
With the news that many doctors have been angered by a new website which allows patients to critique their surgery, it seems appropriate to reflect on how the digital environment and trend for online information sharing can affect practices.
It is worth remembering that many people now blog (the irony of this statement is not lost on me as I write this!) and as such, there are already intricate networks of knowledge sharing and advice. Much of this will be positive praise for practices and should be celebrated by surgeries.
Obviously, there will be the occasional negative comment, but this is the nature of the beast and practices should respond accordingly. Instead of seeing it as an attack on the practice and individuals, it would be more fitting to use any negative feedback to address issues that patients may be having.
While it is still too early to conclude whether the website will prove a useful knowledge sharing centre or not, it is worth trying to consider how such a service may benefit general practices. It may be that having a centralised place for patients to voice opinions will prove easier to monitor and police.
We at Practice Business welcome all feedback from you, our readers, and I would imagine that you feel the same about your relationship with your patients. Hopefully a service such as this will enable a degree of interaction.
The greatest danger as I see it is that if libellous material is posted, the World Wide Web can be tangled and complex machine, where information can trickle away, gathering speed and momentum. While any inappropriate postings can be deleted from a site, they may have already spiralled to countless PCs and laptops around the globe.
A well managed service should be nothing to fear for surgeries. An ill-maintained service, however, could be a ticking time-bomb. Only time will tell.