TY  - JOUR
AU  - Seltzer, Emily K
AU  - Guntuku, Sharath Chandra
AU  - Lanza, Amy L
AU  - Tufts, Christopher
AU  - Srinivas, Sindhu K
AU  - Klinger, Elissa V
AU  - Asch, David A
AU  - Fausti, Nick
AU  - Ungar, Lyle H
AU  - Merchant, Raina M
PY  - 2022
DA  - 2022/3/31
TI  - Patient Experience and Satisfaction in Online Reviews of Obstetric Care: Observational Study
JO  - JMIR Form Res
SP  - e28379
VL  - 6
IS  - 3
KW  - patient satisfaction
KW  - Yelp
KW  - online reviews
KW  - labor and delivery
KW  - ob-gyn
KW  - quality improvement
KW  - machine learning
KW  - labor
KW  - delivery
KW  - natural language processing
KW  - maternal health
KW  - ML
KW  - patients
KW  - obstetrics
AB  - Background: The quality of care in labor and delivery is traditionally measured through the Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems but less is known about the experiences of care reported by patients and caregivers on online sites that are more easily accessed by the public. Objective: The aim of this study was to generate insight into the labor and delivery experience using hospital reviews on Yelp. Methods: We identified all Yelp reviews of US hospitals posted online from May 2005 to March 2017. We used a machine learning tool, latent Dirichlet allocation, to identify 100 topics or themes within these reviews and used Pearson r to identify statistically significant correlations between topics and high (5-star) and low (1-star) ratings. Results: A total of 1569 hospitals listed in the American Hospital Association directory had at least one Yelp posting, contributing a total of 41,095 Yelp reviews. Among those hospitals, 919 (59%) had at least one Yelp rating for labor and delivery services (median of 9 reviews), contributing a total of 6523 labor and delivery reviews. Reviews concentrated among 5-star (n=2643, 41%) and 1-star reviews (n=1934, 30%). Themes strongly associated with favorable ratings included the following: top-notch care (r=0.45, P<.001), describing staff as comforting (r=0.52, P<.001), the delivery experience (r=0.46, P<.001), modern and clean facilities (r=0.44, P<.001), and hospital food (r=0.38, P<.001). Themes strongly correlated with 1-star labor and delivery reviews included complaints to management (r=0.30, P<.001), a lack of agency among patients (r=0.47, P<.001), and issues with discharging from the hospital (r=0.32, P<.001). Conclusions: Online review content about labor and delivery can provide meaningful information about patient satisfaction and experiences. Narratives from these reviews that are not otherwise captured in traditional surveys can direct efforts to improve the experience of obstetrical care. 
SN  - 2561-326X
UR  - https://formative.jmir.org/2022/3/e28379
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2196/28379
UR  - http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35357310
DO  - 10.2196/28379
ID  - info:doi/10.2196/28379
ER  -