Friday, March 06, 2009

Can one stop customers from using web 2.0 technology to rate services? There are some doctors that are trying to do this:
Docs Seek Gag Orders To Stop Patients' Reviews
http://tech.yahoo.com/news/ap/20090304/ap_on_hi_te/med_gagging_patients

I view ratings in Amazon when I am considering purchases of appliances, for example - but only for consideration, not as the final word. Personally, I don't trust rating sites, doctor or otherwise. Ratings can be skewed. Those that rate may have the best intentions, or they could be working for the competition, or simply be humans with a grudge. Maybe if the AMA and the AOA would develop an official site that showed evaluative material for physicians, the customer-driven sites would fade into the background.

What would our profession think of a new library/librarian rating site? If ALA and the Medical Library Association came up with rating sites for our customers to check out our scores, how would we deal with that professionally and personally? (note: academic librarians may already be rated on sites like http://ratemyprofessors.com)

1 comment:

Sharon said...

Teresa,
Hello! thanks for being in the class! This is a thought provoking post about using Web 2 tools for ratings. I think what is troublesome about letting just anyone rate you (as a doctor, or librarian or multimedia developer) is that the credibility of the person rating is not validated or confirmed.
Thus anyone can rate you without having the knowledge, experience or credentials to properly accurately do so.
I too take ratings that I see (on Amazon, other) with a grain of salt but they do influence me, whether or not I know for sure the credibility of the person making the rating.
So I could see why doctors would be concerned about being rated in such a way -
yet, in the 'real' world the same thing happens all the time via 'word of mouth' where friends recommend something (a doctor, a dentist, a new lawn mower) to another friend and this has always seemed acceptable - so perhaps the only difference is that ratings via Web 2 reach a wider audience?

Anyway - very interesting question you raised.
Thanks for the post!
Susan