Wednesday morning in New York, attendees at the Strategic Social Media in Healthcare conference will hear from the Pew Internet & American Life Project about how to engage "health consumers"--i.e., patients--in the delivery of care and in healthcare innovation. Attendees are likely to see a new round of Pew data on "e-patients," a phrase that can stands for "electronic" patients (à la "email"), "empowered" patients or "engaged" patients.

We'd better hope the new results are better than what Pew showed us last year. Otherwise, getting patients involved in their own care is going to be an uphill battle for a long time to come.

As blogger Nicola Ziady recently pointed out, the 2009 Pew survey indicated that nearly half of U.S. adults have sought information about health professionals on the Internet and 41 percent had read about another person's health or medical experience online. Almost one-fourth had looked up doctor ratings or reviews.

They were not likely to have found much, though. According to the same study, just 5 percent of adults in this country have written a review about a doctor and a mere 4 percent had reviewed a hospital for public consumption.

The findings are even more disappointing when you consider that other research has shown that patients still overwhelmingly choose hospitals and physicians based on three key factors: participation in their health plan; proximity to home; and word of mouth. How good can word of mouth be when only one in 20 Americans is willing to review a provider, at least on the Internet?

Until the public has access to true data on physician and hospital quality--and "meaningful use" reporting potentially will provide such data--then we're stuck with relying on reputation. Based on the Pew numbers, reputation may be even less reliable than I previously thought. I'm hoping--but not holding my breath--that patients have become more engaged in their own care since last year. - Neil