‘Trip Advisor for hospitals’ online service to begin next month

An online service described by its creators as “TripAdvisor for hospitals” will begin next month.

Patient Opinion Ireland will follow the model used by Patient Opinion UK and similar sites in Scotland and Australia, allowing users to post criticisms or praise online and allowing hospitals to respond.

The service will be run by NGO the Irish Society for Quality and Safety in Healthcare, which for almost 10 years received statutory funding to carry out phone-based surveys of patient experiences of the hospital system.

Hilary Dunne of ISQSH said work was continuing on establishing the database that will be used for the site, and that all the hospitals would be contacted to check if they wished to become involved.

Only registered users will be able to comment, but they will be able to post with a user name or avatar.

The comments will be moderated and will not identify individual medical staff, while any hospital that agrees to become involved can do so for free for the first two months before deciding if they want to continue by making a financial contribution to the running of the site.

Ms Dunne said: “We do not have anything at the moment that allows patients to submit comments.

“The way that it has worked in the UK so far has been very fair to everybody.”

Have you been a patient receiving care over the Easter feel free to tweet us your comment and feedback via @patientOpin_Ire

— Care Opinion Ireland (@CareOpinionIre) April 21, 2014

She said previous patient surveys by the ISQSH had found that, in any given year, approximately 90% of people who expressed an opinion had said they were satisfied with their treatment within the health system.

She said Patient Opinion Ireland would act as a platform for both positive and critical comment on aspects of patient care and that the involvement of hospitals would allow them to engage directly with the issues as they are raised.

Similarly, elected representatives in each health area can receive alerts when comments about a health facility in their area are posted.

Currently none of the main hospitals have committed to becoming involved, but Ms Dunne said she was optimistic” that they would come on board.

“We will start with the acute hospitals as a base,” she said, “and we are in discussions with community hospital services. It is a really positive opportunity for hospitals. I would be hopeful that we would get at least half the hospitals signed up between now and Christmas — I would be disappointed if we don’t. We have a deficit in the patients’ voice [being heard] in this country and there has to be a mechanism to get that voice out there.”

Have your say by tweeting @PatientOpin_Ire