BUSI 311 Week 4 Discussion Board Forum 4 Example

Discussion Board Forum 4: Marketing and Information Technology in Health Care

BUSI 311 Introduction to Healthcare Administration, Discussion Board Forum 4

Thread by [Student Name]

The practice, its reviews and the classmates are composites; the textbook, Scripture and the peer-reviewed articles cited are real.

Over the past year, our practice's average rating on the major review sites fell from 4.4 to 3.6 stars, and our new-patient calls dropped by about a fifth. My first instinct as practice manager was to buy online advertising. This week's chapter on marketing changed my mind. Buchbinder and Shanks (2017) describe marketing in health care as understanding what patients need and value and building services around it, not only promoting them. For a physician practice, the product is the patient's experience, and online reviews are the advertisement that patients trust most. An advertisement that brought new patients into the same rushed, unfriendly visit would simply generate more one-star reviews.

So I read our one-star reviews. Almost none criticized a diagnosis or treatment. They described long waits, a curt front desk and physicians who seemed rushed. That pattern matches the research. Brinkman et al. (2026) analyzed 7,616 reviews of orthopedic shoulder surgeons and found that among one-star reviews, the most common complaints were about bedside manner, too little time with the provider, uncontrolled pain and rude staff; most complaints were nonclinical, and they were especially common among patients who never had surgery.

Could more social media presence offset the bad reviews? Kerzner et al. (2024) studied 325 sports medicine surgeons with the most active online presence and found no significant relationship between their social media activity and their overall ratings on review sites. Posting more does not change what patients say about their visits, and for a small practice the time spent on social media might be better spent fixing the visit itself.

Our plan therefore targets experience rather than advertising: courtesy training for the front desk, protected time in each physician's schedule so visits do not feel rushed and a short survey sent through our patient portal after each visit so we hear complaints before they appear online. This is where marketing meets information technology: the portal becomes a listening tool, and survey results go to the staff meeting each month. We will judge the plan by our rating, our new-patient calls and our survey scores over the next two quarters. Proverbs teaches that a good name is to be chosen rather than great riches (English Standard Version Bible, 2001/2016, Proverbs 22:1). A practice earns its good name one visit at a time, and no advertising budget can buy it back once it is lost.

Reply to Hannah

Hannah, you described your hospital's push to get every patient onto its portal and suggested that portal activation be counted as a marketing success. I like the idea of measuring it, since what gets measured usually gets attention, but I would want to know which patients are being left behind. Redelman-Sidi et al. (2026) studied 28,386 hospitalized cancer patients and found that 65% logged into the portal at least once, but use was lower among Black patients, single patients and those covered by Medicaid, by about a fifth to a third. Streicher (2026) examined 72,417 neurology patients in the Washington, DC, area and found that portal activation varied by neighborhood, census tract and zip code, as well as by race and ethnicity. A rising activation rate can hide growing gaps, because the patients who sign up easily raise the average while those who face barriers stay behind. The patients least likely to use the portal are often those with the most complex needs and the least margin for missed messages.

If the portal becomes the main channel for results, messages and surveys, patients who do not use it may receive less information and have less voice. James warns against showing partiality to the well-dressed over the poor (English Standard Version Bible, 2001/2016, James 2:1-4), and a communication strategy that serves only connected patients risks a quiet form of partiality. Could your hospital track activation by patient group and offer help signing up during visits, especially for patients on Medicaid, and keep phone and mail options strong for those who will never use a portal?

Reply to Marcus

Marcus, you suggested that physicians at your clinic answer every negative review publicly to set the record straight. I understand the impulse, especially when a review seems unfair or even inaccurate, but public replies carry real legal and reputational risk. Any response that confirms the reviewer was a patient or discusses their care can disclose protected health information, which the Privacy Rule forbids, and federal regulators have penalized practices for exactly this kind of reply. Research also suggests that arguing online misses the point, since readers usually side with the patient. Brinkman et al. (2026) found that most one-star complaints concerned bedside manner, time and staff courtesy, which a defensive or detailed reply tends to confirm in readers' eyes. Kerzner et al. (2024) found that more online activity did not raise ratings, so a flurry of responses is unlikely to help either.

A safer approach is a brief, general reply that thanks the reviewer, apologizes that the experience fell short of what the practice intends, says the practice takes all feedback seriously and invites them to call the office manager directly, without confirming any details about the person or their visit. Proverbs observes that a soft answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger (English Standard Version Bible, 2001/2016, Proverbs 15:1). Would your physicians accept a standard response written by the manager and reviewed by your compliance officer? The real answer to a bad review, though, is usually a change in how the practice treats people, and the reviews tend to improve once that change is visible to patients.

References

Brinkman, J. C., Richman, E. H., LeBaron, Z. G., Paul, B. R., Goldberg, B., Tokish, J. M., & McCarty, E. C. (2026). Characterizing clinical and nonclinical factors in extremely negative online reviews of orthopedic shoulder surgeons. Journal of Shoulder and Elbow Surgery, 35(7), e775-e780. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jse.2025.12.018

Buchbinder, S. B., & Shanks, N. H. (2017). Introduction to health care management (3rd ed.). Jones & Bartlett Learning.

English Standard Version Bible. (2016). Crossway. (Original work published 2001)

Kerzner, B., Dasari, S. P., Swindell, H. W., Obioha, O. A., Khan, Z. A., Rea, P. M., Fortier, L. M., Haynes, M. S., & Chahla, J. (2024). Association between social media activity and ratings on physician review websites among orthopaedic surgeons with an active online media presence. Orthopaedic Journal of Sports Medicine, 12(2), 23259671231209794. https://doi.org/10.1177/23259671231209794

Redelman-Sidi, Y., White, C., Seier, K., Lipitz-Snyderman, A., Dawson, J. P., Kuperman, G., Polubriaginof, F. C. G., & Chimonas, S. (2026). Disparities in cancer patients' portal usage during hospitalizations. Applied Clinical Informatics, 17(4), 844-853. https://doi.org/10.1055/a-2961-1034

Streicher, N. (2026). Patient portal activation disparities by ward, census tract, and zip code in an urban landscape among neurology patients: Cross-sectional multi-scale analysis. Journal of Medical Internet Research, 28, e98695. https://doi.org/10.2196/98695