Yelp adds health care data for hospitals, nursing homes to reviews

Yelp has launched a new feature that adds health care information to its online reviews pages for hospitals, nursing homes and dialysis clinics.

The San Francisco company said Wednesday that it will provide statistics for 4,600 hospitals, 15,000 nursing homes and 6,300 dialysis clinics in the U.S. The information is compiled by ProPublica from their own research and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, and will be updated quarterly.

"Now the millions of consumers who use Yelp to find and evaluate everything from restaurants to retail will have even more information at their fingertips when they are in the midst of the most critical life decisions, like which hospital to choose for a sick child or which nursing home will provide the best care for aging parents," Yelp CEO Jeremy Stoppelman said in a blog post.

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Here is some of the information that will appear on a facility's page:

Hospitals: quality of doctor communication versus state average; if the rooms are quiet at night versus state average

Nursing homes: number of beds; fines paid during the last three years; number of serious deficiencies

Dialysis clinics: number of dialysis stations; rate of hospital readmission versus standard; rate of patient survival versus standard

The move is part of Yelp's consumer protection efforts. Another part of that initiative is working with local governments to add restaurant health scores to Yelp listings.

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