Issue Management in Digital Health Communication from the Perspective of Public Relations: A Review for Hospitals on the Website of Şikâyetvar

Abstract

Sudden or slowly unexpected changes can occur in an organization. Issue management is a potential solution for predicting and evaluating these changes. With the issue management, the issues are determined in advance, and the potential crisis is prevented before it occurs with strategic public relations practice. A complaint from consumers may be the first indication of the issue. This research was conducted to examine the complaints about hospitals between January 1, 2019 and February 28, 2019 on the website of Şikâyetvar (“there is a complaint”), a digital platform. It was found that 74.8% of the complaints were directed toward private, 25.2% toward public hospitals. Staff communication was the most common issue of hospitals. Staff communication constitutes 40.6% of all complaints. 28.7% of the complaints toward private hospitals were about pricing, and 26.2% of the complaints about public hospitals were about the waiting period. 40.7% of the complaints for private hospitals were answered. 47.3% of the complaints were answered within 2-7 days, 24.8% within the same day. It was determined that 48% of the responses were about responsibility. While there was no response from consumers to messages containing responsibility, 45.3% of apology messages were answered by consumers with thank-you messages.