Web site doctor information incomplete

One study's look at 40 sites says that every site doesn't necessarily offer everything physicians or consumers might need.

By Tyler Chin, AMNews staff. March 18, 2002.

Web sites are posting incomplete and sometimes inaccurate profiles of physicians, according to a report from two nonprofit organizations that research health and social issues.

The findings mean that consumers are using flawed data to select doctors, who could be losing business and not even know it, said Elliott Stone, CEO of Massachusetts Health Data Consortium Inc., Waltham, Mass., one of the groups behind the report.

The report, published by the New York-based Commonwealth Fund, found that many sites offering profiles of physicians -- some of which include malpractice court judgments and settlements, disciplinary actions and performance data -- "had incomplete, missing, and possibly inaccurate or outdated data."

The researchers' analysis of 40 sites operated by commercial, government, hospital and insurer entities also found other deficiencies. The sites often did not organize information very well or make it searchable, and did not disclose how they collected their information and whether doctors paid to be included in their databases, the report said.

The report did not individually rate the sites it visited. Its review was a general overview of health care on the Web. But the report did break down what features each site offers. [...]