Das Gesundheitswesen
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In physician rating sites (PRS), patients are able to share their experiences and indicate their satisfaction in qualitative and quantitative form. This information should support other patients in the search for a suitable physician and can serve as a form of anonymous feedback for physicians. Medical association representatives are often concerned that such reviews primarily aim at defamation. Furthermore, there are various aspects of medical work that cannot be adequately evaluated solely through the patients. In the United States of America, the majority of such previous reviews were shown to be positive. It has yet to be examined in the German and English speaking regions where distinct criteria presently allow patients to express their satisfaction through PRS. ⋯ The various PRS vary significantly in the selection and explanation of criteria for the evaluation of medical quality and, respectively, patient satisfaction. The specific selection and explanation of certain evaluation criteria could have a lasting effect on the understanding of physician quality and patient self-conception in the case of increased utilisation of PRS. The lack of standards for medical evaluation for PRS as well as poorly differentiated reviews, since reviews were usually positive, generally speak for the need for full text comments on PRS. This would enable peer-to-peer communication amongst users, especially regarding the practical relevance of evaluation criteria. Through this interaction between PRS users, user-oriented standards can be established and the advanced use of physician rating sites can be promoted.
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Das Gesundheitswesen · Aug 2012
[Linkage of secondary data with cancer registry data on the basis of encrypted personal identifiers - results from a pilot study in North Rhine-Westphalia].
The Cancer Registry of North-Rhine-Westphalia stores exclusively encrypted personal identifiers of registered cancer patients. Therefore, comparisons with secondary data sets can only be performed by record linkage procedures that are based on encrypted personal identifiers. We report on a pilot study which linked encrypted personal data from the disease management program for patients with diabetes mellitus type 2 (DMP-DM2) with the database of the EKR NRW in order to test the feasibility and efficiency of these record linkage procedures. ⋯ The DMP-DM2 records were encrypted and linked to cancer registry data with a moderate personnel and financial input and high efficiency. Linked records were instantly usable for epidemiological analyses. Experiences of the pilot study suggest that future linkage studies can further advance the level of data protection, without losses in efficiency, by moderately complex software modifications and amendments of the data flow.