Providers may ‘Yelp’ at review website’s newest feature

Crowdsourced business review website Yelp has partnered with non-profit newsroom ProPublica to add more healthcare statistics to Yelp’s 25,000 medical treatment facility business pages.

Yelp’s founders, Jeremy Stoppelman and Russel Simmons, say that since the app’s inception in 2004, they have wanted to use the platform to help people find a good doctor.

Meanwhile, The Washington Post quotes Scott Klein, ProPublica’s assistant managing editor, saying millions of Yelp users will also have access to the news organization’s data.

Yelp, of course, is widely known as the site to visit if you want to know how everyday people feel about that new burger joint or the neighborhood bar or even which hospital might have the shortest average emergency room waiting time. That included New York Times, NPR, and Time to make extensive journalism pieces.

Yelp spokeswoman Rachel Walker comments that ProPublica had advised them on which data points would be the most effective for display.

USA Today also quotes Andrew Ibbotson, vice president of the National Research Corporation, which converts thousands of patient satisfaction surveys into online ratings for hospitals personal websites, saying Yelp is taking a great step in providing consumers with more information on health care providers.

The information could be useful, however Caplan said that one should know that selecting a hospital or nursing home is different from finding a favorite restaurant for the reason that customers usually don’t have much options regarding what to do in the event of an emergency, when it comes to a hospital. Lowe said that the company will add more data to its listings in the future.