Research On Empowerment Mechanism Of Mobile Health Services Value Co-creation For Chronic Disease

With the acceleration of population aging,the burden of disease is gradually shifting to chronic diseases in China.Nowadays,the medical and health industry urgently needs to improve the residents’ healthy lifestyle and reverse the situation of chronic diseases being prone to high incidence and difficult to prevent and cure with the help of more forces and more standardized management modes.With its characteristics of mobility,ease of access,convenience,traceability,and high interaction,mHealth services provide a new model of low-cost and effective health management for patients with chronic diseases.However,there are still problems of low adoption rate and continuous utilization rate of mHealth services,especially for patients with chronic diseases,who lack routine use habits and fail to obtain the health benefits brought by mHealth services.The active interaction between patients and other actors(physicians and platforms)is indispensable for mHealth services to play the role of "patient-centered" health management and promote the patients’ continuous participation.How to effectively maintain the voluntary and continuous value creation for patients and physicians in the mHealth platforms is an important research question explored in this study.Based on value co-creation concepts and empowerment theory,this article is to explore the methods and factors that can influence mHealth service actors’ continuous value creation and reveal the empowerment mechanism of the mHealth services value co-creation.Specific studies include:(1)From the personal empowerment perspective of human-computer interaction,Study I explores the personalized differences in the adoption and continuous use of mHealth services for patients with chronic diseases,represented by diabetic patients,and their impact on health outcomes.According to the five factors model,the experimental research method is applied to identify the personality factors that affect the adoption and continuous use of mHealth services in patients with diabetes.The influence of mHealth services on patients’ health outcomes is objectively verified by laboratory testing of Hb A1 c.The results show that age,education,introversion,and openness to experience significantly affect the adoption and continuous use of mHealth services.The more frequently patients use mHealth services,the more their health outcomes are improved.This study explores the personal factors that influence diabetic patients’ participation in mHealth services,and provides support for the personalized human-computer interaction design of mHealth platforms based on personality,so as to realize value co-creation between platforms and patients.(2)From the social empowerment perspective of patient-patient interaction,Study II proposes to construct social identity-based groups to improve the participation and health outcome of patients with chronic diseases.Based on social identity theory,an online peer group is constructed to cultivate patients’ group identity and to test whether patients’ participation behavior and health improvement in the identity-based group are better than that in individual-level peer groups.The results show that compared with individual-level peer groups,members in the identity-based groups have higher group identity,more information support behaviors,and group identity is positively associated with improved health-related outcomes.The results of the qualitative analysis provide suggestions on how to construct social identity-based online peer groups.This study explores the group factors affecting diabetic patients’ participation in mHealth services and finds ways to improve social empowerment,provides guidance for the design of patient-human interaction of mHealth platforms,so as to realize the value of co-creation of platforms,patients,and other peers.(3)Through the investigation of experimental subjects in Study I and II,it is found that the participation behavior of patients with chronic disease is influenced by their needs for the interaction design function of mHealth services.Thus,based on the interaction characteristics of mHealth services,Study III constructs a research model that personalization-technology enabler,peer effect-social enabler,and physician-patient interaction-professional enabler influence the routine use of patients with chronic diseases through the mediation of psychological empowerment.The impact of each interaction characteristic on patient behavior is analyzed empirically.The results show that the physician-patient interaction professional enabler is superior to technical enabler and social enabler in the intervention of routine use behavior for patients with chronic diseases,and psychological empowerment plays a mediating role in this relationship.This study reveals the potential mechanism of mHealth services promoting routine use behavior for patients with chronic disease,which can explain the experimental studies of Study I and II,and provides theoretical guidance and practical suggestions for mHealth services practitioners to promote the daily health management of chronic patients.(4)From the medical empowerment perspective of physician-patient interaction,Study IV explores the influence of patient empowering behavior on physicians’ proactive knowledge sharing.According to the proactive motivation theory,this study proposes that physicians’ online knowledge sharing has the nature of proactive behavior.Based on the empowerment theory,constructs of patient empowerment behavior are proposed.This study constructs a theoretical model that the influence of perceived patient empowering behavior on physicians’ online knowledge sharing,and explores the moderating effect of extrinsic rewards.The results show that physicians’ knowledge sharing is impacted by the proactive motivational states.The positive influence of patient empowering behavior on physicians’ knowledge sharing is fully mediated by proactive motivation states.Extrinsic rewards negatively moderate the positive relationship between sharing meaning and physicians’ knowledge sharing.This study reveals the patient factors that impacted physicians’ online participants and the reverse empowerment mechanism in mHealth services,and provides theoretical support and practical suggestions for the physician-patient interaction design of mHealth platforms,so as to realize value co-creation of platforms,physicians,and patients.This thesis reveals a two-way value co-creation empowerment mechanism for mHealth services.This thesis analyzes the ways of value co-creation among actors in mHealth services and reveals the connotation of the mHealth service value co-creation.And creatively combined with the empowerment theory,this thesis explores the empowerment process from service providers to service beneficiaries(Study I,II,III),and also explores the reverse empowerment process from service beneficiaries to service providers(Study IV).The two processes form a two-way empowerment mechanism to explain value co-creation in mHealth services.The mechanism facilitates the iterative creation of value by each actor in mHealth services.Relevant research results provide a theoretical basis and practical guidance for the sustainable development and positive role in the health management of mHealth services for patients with chronic disease.