Find-A-Doctor sites return insufficient, inappropriate results

The majority of leading U.S. hospitals and health systems do not give patients the option to search medical conditions online, according to a new report from Kyruus. Researchers studied 40 top providers' Find-a-Doctor sites and found that for one of the most common afflictions, a headache, half of the hospitals and health systems either couldn't identify a suitable doctor or identified one whose specialty was not suited to treating headaches. When they searched "rash," a full 90 percent of hospitals and health systems returned either an inappropriate match or none at all. "[Patients] often leave these sites feeling confused by the lack of information and frustrated by the inability to book an appointment or perform functions that are routine in the airline and many other industries," Kyruus CEO Graham Gardner, M.D., said in a statement. Report (.pdf)