star ratings and reviews

We invite patients and families from all care settings to evaluate their experience at Dayton Children's after their first visit, primarily thorugh a survey administered by a national third party market research firm. Follow-up surveys are administered via email or phone to gather and share open-ended feedback from patient families on their provider and overall hospital experience. In addition to this survey, we collect patient feedback through a variety of additional sources including our website, social media, reviews left on Google and other third party website, and provider rounding with patient families.  

Surveys ask patient families a variety of questions about their overall experience at the hospital. This includes everything from experiences with doctors and nurses, to check-in and more. We also specifically ask patient families how well their physician communicated, listened, and showed courtesy and respect toward them. Results are used to evaluate patients’ overall perception of care and to identify areas for improvement.

Answers provided in these surveys is used to calculate a star rating, which we share online. The star rating is measured on a scale of 1 to 5 stars, with 5 stars being the highest rating and 1 star being the lowest rating. We also share comments from an open-ended question that is asked in the survey and is posted on our provider's bios. This question is as follows: “What comments do you have about this provider? We may share your feedback anonymously online.”

We post both positive and negative review comments on individual doctor bios throughout our website. The question we share answers to online is: “What comments do you have about this provider? We may share your feedback anonymously online.” We do not post comments that include profanity, slander, libel or hearsay. Patient and/or family member names are removed to maintain confidentiality and patient privacy.

Industry best practice shows that more data provides a more accurate picture. That’s why we require a minimum of 30 completed patient surveys in a rolling year per provider before we post their rating. Over time, with more surveys received on an ongoing basis, the number of rated providers will increase. A provider’s rating will only be posted on the site when he/she has a minimum of 30 completed surveys in the rolling year time period.

While we do collect feedback on all providers, we do not share ratings or reviews online for providers with whom the community cannot schedule an appointment either directly or through a referral. For this reason, providers who work in emergency medicine, anesthesiology, critical care, newborn medicine and neonatology, hospital medicine, pathology, and radiology/medical imaging do not receive reviews.