Unlike goods, which are concrete and easily quantified, services are intangible processes that are produced and consumed concurrently. Health care is a service that can encourage optimal health outcomes only through meaningful, collaborative partnerships between patients and clinicians. Co-production of health services can be used as a means to rethink how health care is delivered not only in the context of face-toface encounters in which the benefits of working together are obvious, but also in designing systems that can improve patient care and enhance value.
Conflict of Interest Disclosures: Dr Ayers owns an equity stake in Directing Medicine LLC and HealthWatcher Inc, both consulting groups that advise on the use of social media and news media for public health surveillance. Dr Dredze has received consulting fees from Directing Medicine LLC and Sickweather LLC, who use social media for public health surveillance. Bloomberg LP provided salary support for Dr Dredze, but did not have any additional role in the study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.