Building a classification model for physician recommender service based on needs for physician information

Abstract

This study aimed to analyze the questions asking for recommendations for doctors collected from Health category of Yahoo Answers. Questions of such implicitly describe the physician information needs in situations where choosing a new physician who fits the patients’ expectation is a top priority. 400 questions were analyzed qualitatively to induce the attributes of the articulated physician information needs of patients and caregivers of eight medical specialties. The attributes were categorized into physician-related, patient-related, illness and disease-related, and institution and procedural-related. The attributes inform practice in designing systems for context-based classification model for physician recommender service.