Journal article
Reputation Management and Content Control: An Analysis of Radiation Oncologists' Digital Identities
International journal of radiation oncology, biology, physics, v 99(5), pp 1083-1091
01 Dec 2017
PMID: 28939228
Featured in Collection : UN Sustainable Development Goals @ Drexel
Abstract
Introduction: Google is the most popular search engine in the United States, and patients are increasingly relying on online webpages to seek information about individual physicians. This study aims to characterize what patients find when they search for radiation oncologists online.
Methods and Materials: The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) Physician Comparable Downloadable File was used to identify all Medicare-participating radiation oncologists in the United States and Puerto Rico. Each radiation oncologist was characterized by medical school education, year of graduation, city of practice, gender, and affiliation with an academic institution. Using a custom Google-based search engine, up to the top 10 search results for each physician were extracted and categorized as relating to: (1) physician, hospital, or health care system; (2) third-party; (3) social media; (4) academic journal articles; or (5) other.
Results: Among all health care providers in the United States within CMS, 4443 self-identified as being radiation oncologists and yielded 40,764 search results. Of those, 1161 (26.1%) and 3282 (73.9%) were classified as academic and nonacademic radiation oncologists, respectively. At least 1 search result was obtained for 4398 physicians (99.0%). Physician, hospital, and health careecontrolled websites (16,006; 39.3%) and third-party websites (10,494; 25.7%) were the 2 most often observed domain types. Social media platforms accounted for 2729 (6.7%) hits, and peer-reviewed academic journal-websites accounted for 1397 (3.4%) results. About 6.8% and 6.7% of the top 10 links were social media websites for academic and nonacademic radiation oncologists, respectively.
Conclusions: Most radiation oncologists lack self-controlled online content when patients search within the first page of Google search results. With the strong presence of third-party websites and lack of social media, opportunities exist for radiation oncologists to increase their online presence to improve patient-provider communication and better the image of the overall field. We discuss strategies to improve online visibility. (C) 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
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Details
- Title
- Reputation Management and Content Control: An Analysis of Radiation Oncologists' Digital Identities
- Creators
- Arpan V. Prabhu - UPMC Hillman Cancer CenterChristopher Kim - Rutgers, The State University of New JerseyEison De Guzman - Rutgers, The State University of New JerseyEric Zhao - Rutgers, The State University of New JerseyEvan Madill - University of PittsburghJonathan Cohen - University of PittsburghDavid R. Hansberry - Jefferson University HospitalsNitin Agarwal - University of PittsburghDwight E. Heron - University of PittsburghSushil Beriwal - University of Pittsburgh
- Publication Details
- International journal of radiation oncology, biology, physics, v 99(5), pp 1083-1091
- Publisher
- Elsevier
- Number of pages
- 9
- Grant note
- The Beckwith Institute
- Resource Type
- Journal article
- Language
- English
- Academic Unit
- Radiation Oncology (and Nuclear Medicine)
- Web of Science ID
- WOS:000416919400013
- Scopus ID
- 2-s2.0-85029584850
- Other Identifier
- 991021897262004721
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InCites Highlights
Data related to this publication, from InCites Benchmarking & Analytics tool:
- Collaboration types
- Domestic collaboration
- Web of Science research areas
- Oncology
- Radiology, Nuclear Medicine & Medical Imaging