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"Finding a General Surgeon: Self-Referral in the Digital Era"
Zachary L Gentry1, Shivani Ananthasekar1, Herbert Chen1
1Department of Surgery, 9967University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, AL, USA.
The American Surgeon
|December 31, 2020
Summary
Patients struggle to find general surgeons online, as hospital websites often fail to prioritize these specialists for common procedures like hernia and gallbladder issues. This highlights a need for improved online provider search functionality.
Area of Science:
- Healthcare accessibility
- Digital health platforms
- Surgical patient navigation
Background:
- Increasing reliance on the internet for healthcare decisions.
- Patients frequently use hospital websites to find physicians.
- Hypothesis: Hospital website variability hinders patient access to general surgeons.
Purpose of the Study:
- To assess the ease of finding general surgeons on academic hospital websites.
- To analyze how hospital websites present providers for common surgical conditions.
Main Methods:
- Utilized US News and World Report Hospital Rankings (2018-2019).
- Searched "Find A Doctor" pages for "hernia" and "gallbladder."
- Collected data on provider specialty and gender; analyzed using descriptive statistics.
Main Results:
- Median of 18 providers listed per search (range: 1-204).
- General surgeons were not the majority for hernia (12/16) or gallbladder (14/16) searches.
- 16/16 institutions predominantly suggested male providers (median 83% male).
Conclusions:
- Significant website variability exists in suggesting providers for general surgery.
- General surgeons are often not listed as primary providers for common conditions.
- Health systems must optimize website provider suggestions for patient care access.
