| With the development and application of website technology,online healthcare communities come into people’s life.More and more patients use those communities to consult physicians online.Without the limitation of time and space,online healthcare communities have changed traditional healthcare to a novel model that enhances the efficiency of healthcare resources allocation,decreases healthcare cost in society,improves relationship between physicians and patients,and reduces physician-patient tensions.The interaction between physicians and patients is vital to the development of online healthcare communities.How to facilitate online physician-patient interaction has become an important research question.Patient-generated information is a kind information by patients who have received physicians’ online health service.For patients,this kind of information could deliver signals of service quality to patients without any experience,which can facilitate communication among patients and reduce information asymmetry.For physicians,patient-generated information could supervise physicians’ service qualities and stimulate their contribution behaviors.Therefore,patient-generated information positively affects interaction between physician and patients,as well as facilitating the development and growth of online healthcare communities.In China,the research on online healthcare communities is still in infancy.Moreover,there is large difference between healthcare system in the domestic and overseas.Hence,studies on online healthcare have vital practical implication and theoretical significance.Based on the view of decision,service delivery and return process,as well as three research questions,this paper empirically researches the effects of patient-generated information on the physician-patients interaction process.Based on current literature review,this paper defines the concept and characteristics of patient-generated information and online patient-physician interaction process.Then,we introduce the related theories in online patient-physician interaction process,i.e.,signal theory,service quality theory and self-determination theory.Combined with the selection process,delivery process and return process,this paper builds a theory model of online patient-physician interaction process,which provides theor tical foundation to our research.First,this paper explores the effects of patients-generated information on evaluation and decision,as well as investigating the strengths of patients-generated information and physicians’ ranking on patients’ decision.Because of information asymmetry and the ser vice characteristics,patients are difficult to determinate physicians’ service qualities and chose a suitable physician.In online healthcare communities,patient-generated and systemgenerated information could help patients and users understand physicians’ service qualities,reduce information asymmetry and decrease search cost.From different aspects,those kinds of information reflect service qualities.Based on theory and empirical method in decision process,this paper builds a model to investigate the impacts of information on patients’ behaviors.The empirical results show that the number of patient-generated information positively affects patients’ behaviors.Synergies between patient-generated and system-generated information will be positively associated with patients’ decisions.Moreover,this paper designs a behavior experiment with eye-track machine to study the strengths of patient-generated information and physicians’ ranking on patients’ decision.The results prove that patients-generated information has a bigger effect on patients’ decision than physicians’ ranking.Second,this paper investigates the effects of service delivery on patients’ satisfaction.The development of the online health community observed for this paper has dramatically changed the traditional process of physician service delivery.The interaction between physicians and patients on the Internet lacks face-to-face communication.Therefore,how physicians use this novel platform to deliver high-quality service to satisfy patients has become a significantly important issue.This paper is based on service quality model and the customer characteristics theory,as well as the analysis of data from the online health community.It verifies that online physician service delivery processes significantly affect patient satisfaction,specifically with respect to response speed and interaction frequency.Moreover,this paper examines how a patient’s disease risk moderates the relationship between the service delivery process and satisfaction.The empirical results of this paper support all our hypotheses.This paper contributes to online service quality and e-health literature by investigating the effects of the physician service delivery process on patient satisfaction.Third,this paper studies the impacts of patient-generated information on physicians’ online contribution.Sustained using and online contribution behaviors are one of important factors affecting the development of online health community.Although there are extensive studies on the motivation of participants’ contribution in virtual community,scant literature investigates motivation on physicians’ contribution behaviors in online health community and the role of physicians’ offline status.Based on motivation theory,we collect data from online health community to establish an empirical model to explore the physicians’ motivation mechanism.The empirical results of this paper show that physicians’ offline status,reputation rewards and monetary rewards have positive effects on physicians’ contribution behaviors in online healthcare community.In addition,we also find the moderating effects of physician’s offline status on the relationship between rewards and physician’s online contribution behaviors.These findings help us understand physicians’ motivation mechanism on contribution behaviors in online health community,and thus contribute to online healthcare community and knowledge sharing in virtual community literature. |
PDF Full Text Request