Locum Tenens Tips

Hospital ratings: How to use them in selecting your next job

Hospital ratings: use them to help select your next assignment

Making great locum tenens matches is a two-way street. Hospital administrators in need of extra short-term staff use many methods for vetting locum tenens providers, including scouring the Internet to read up on physicians’ online reviews. “I do a Google search to look at their reviews,” said director of physician services, Julia Race, in a recent interview. “What people say about them can give you a good insight as to what we can expect.”

Fortunately, the same holds true for locum tenens providers contemplating assignments at different facilities. After you narrow down your options, you may want to do some of your own online research before accepting an assignment. Here, we highlight five resources that provide additional insight as you decide on which places best suit your needs.

Google search

“Googling” something is often the way any research is started these days. Looking for a new restaurant? Google search. Planning a vacation? Google search. So when you are presented with an opportunity at a facility unfamiliar to you, why not start with a Google search? Take a peek at the top results, and then click over to “News” to see if anything of interest catches your eye. You’ll be surprised what you can learn about a facility this way.

Google and Facebook hospital reviews

While you’re on Google, you can read through a facility’s reviews as well. Go to Google Maps, search for the hospital by name, and scroll down on the left until you get to the review summary. There you can see the overall “star” rating, as well as comments from the general public.  If the facility has a Facebook page, you can see hospital reviews there.

Glassdoor

Hospital ratings - how to use them to help select your next jobOn the website glassdoor.com, current and former employees anonymously review their companies and management. Click on the company reviews tab and type in the name of a facility to see their overall star rating. You will have to complete a brief, free registration before you can read all of the employee reviews about their experiences, but it’s a great way to get insights into how past and current employees feel about the employer.

 Medicare hospital compare

At medicare.gov, you can search for a list of all Medicare-certified hospitals in a specific city, state, or zip code, and compare up to three hospitals at a time. Read patient survey results about how well staff communicate, patient experience with the facility, and whether patients would recommend it to others. The website also shows how often a hospital meets best standards for timely and effective care and how a hospital compares to state and national benchmarks. Ratings are based on data from government sources.

Healthgrades

At healthgrades.com, you can find information about providers and hospitals. When searching for hospitals, you can see things such as how a hospital compares to national averages based on patient experience rankings, how well a hospital rates for patient safety for 14 potentially serious complications, and quality of care ratings. Ratings are based on patient safety measures as defined by the Centers for Medical and Medicaid Services, outcomes measures, and patient experience measures.

Be discerning in your search

While online hospital reviews and research can help inform the decisions you make about which locums assignments to accept, they should be taken with a grain of salt. Review sites only tell part of the story, and shouldn’t be relied upon solely to make a determination of where to accept assignments.

At reputable staffing companies, like Weatherby Healthcare, every locum tenens provider is assigned a dedicated consultant who is committed to finding opportunities that align with their provider’s priorities. Online reviews are a good way to supplement that information and interviews you have with the facility, so you can make the most informed decision about jobs you accept.

Let us help you find the perfect locums assignment. Give us a call at 954.343.3050 or view today’s job openings.

About the author

Lisa Daggett

Lisa Daggett is well-versed on the topic of locum tenens staffing and was a regular contributor to LocumLife, Healthcare Traveler, and Travel Nurse magazines. She served as associate editor of RN Magazine and as an editorial assistant for Business & Health.

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