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Is There an Association Between Spine Surgeon Academic Productivity and Patient Satisfaction Ratings?
Katriel E Lee1, Nima Alan1, Nikhil Dholaria2
1Department of Neurosurgery, Barrow Neurological Institute, St. Joseph's Hospital and Medical Center, Phoenix , Arizona , USA.
Background And Objectives:
Physician rating websites (PRWs) are increasingly used by patients to find health care providers. This study explores spine neurosurgeon PRW ratings and their relationship with academic productivity.
Methods:
A retrospective study was conducted from November 2022 to May 2023 that included 1990 neurological surgeons listed in the American Association of Neurological Surgeons database with a subspecialty in spine. Neurosurgeons were excluded if they had no reviews on Healthgrades or if no citation data were available on Scopus or Google Scholar. Surgeon demographic data were collected. Ratings and the number of reviewers were collected for Healthgrades, Vitals, Google reviews, and physician institutional websites. The h -index, number of publications, and number of citations were found on Scopus or Google Scholar.
Results:
A total of 1031 spine neurosurgeons met the inclusion criteria (mean age [range], 61 [34-94] years; male sex, 996 of 1031 [96.6%]). The mean (SD) Healthgrades, Vitals, Google reviews, and institutional ratings were 4.08 (0.70), 4.06 (0.65), 4.34 (0.79), and 4.70 (0.25), respectively. Median (IQR) h -index, number of publications, and number of citations were 5.0 (1.0), 8.0 (26), and 205 (684), respectively. For all PRWs, the average PRW rating decreased as age increased. Academic productivity as measured by h -index, number of publications, and number of citations were not significantly associated with PRW rating.
Conclusion:
Overall, spine neurosurgeon ratings on PRWs were favorable. Ratings were found to decrease with increasing surgeon age, and academic productivity was not correlated with better ratings.
