Department of Supply Chain Management faculty members Regis Terpend and Jim Kroes have recently published a research paper, “Defining, measuring and managing healthcare quality using unstructured physician review comments,” which has been accepted by the TQM Journal. The TQM journal is a respected international publication that welcomes high-quality contributions from academics, researchers and practitioners focused on business, process management and operations. It aims to showcase research that addresses real-world industry challenges and contributes to practical, impactful solutions.
In their study, Terpend and Kroes challenged the medical field’s long-standing skepticism toward using online reviews as a measure of healthcare quality. Their research, based on the analysis of over 4,000 comments from physician review websites, reveals that these unstructured online comments hold valuable insights into patient satisfaction. The study identifies a three-tiered hierarchy of healthcare service attributes that influence patient perceptions: first, establishing strong operational foundations; second, building trust through demonstrated clinical competence; and third, delivering patient-centered care using a service-dominant logic. These findings suggest that online reviews can be a powerful, underutilized resource for improving healthcare quality.