Exploring the Role of Online Health Community Information in Patients’ Decisions to Switch from Online to Offline Medical Services

Li, Yufei; Song, Yuanyuan; Zhao, Wei; Guo, Xitong; Ju, Xiaofeng; Vogel, Doug

doi:10.1016/j.ijmedinf.2019.08.011

Cited by 64 publications

(49 citation statements)

References 20 publications

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“…Especially in the internet era, as mentioned previously, the internet has played a vital role in residents’ decision making on their choice of hospitals [ 40 ]. Li et al [ 41 ] demonstrated that there was a strong association between online health communities information and patient decisions of switching from online to offline medical services. One study suggested an association between online health information–seeking behaviors and some health behaviors, such as physical activity, fruit and vegetable consumption, alcohol use, and hypertension medication adherence [ 23 ].…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Impact of the Internet on Medical Decisions of Chinese Adults: Longitudinal Data Analysis

Ma¹,

Sun²,

Cui³

et al. 2020

J Med Internet Res

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Background The internet has caused the explosive growth of medical information and has greatly improved the availability of medical knowledge. This makes the internet one of the main ways for residents to obtain medical information and knowledge before seeking medical treatment. However, little has been researched on how the internet affects medical decisions. Objective The purpose of this study was to explore the associations between internet behaviors and medical decisions among Chinese adults aged 18 or over, including whether to go to the hospital and which level of medical institution to choose. Methods With the adult residents (≥18 years old) in 12 regions including urban and rural areas taken as the research objects, the differences in medical choices of adults with various characteristics were analyzed, and generalized linear mixed models were adopted to analyze the longitudinal data of the China Health Nutrition Survey from 2006 to 2015. Results Adult groups with different ages, genders, education levels, regions, places of residence, severities of illness and injury, years of suffering from hypertension, and history of chronic diseases showed diverse medical decisions, and the differences were statistically significant (P<.05). After controlling for these potential confounding factors and taking self-care as the reference, the probability of Chinese adults who participated in online browsing activities selecting hospital care was 0.82 (95% CI 0.69-0.98; P=.03) times that of residents who did not participate in online browsing activities. In terms of medical institution choices, adults who participated in online browsing activities were 1.86 (95% CI 1.35-2.58; P<.001) times more likely to opt for municipal medical treatment than primary care. However, the effect of online browsing on the selection probability of county-level hospitals was not significant compared with primary hospitals (P=.59). Robust analysis verified that accessing the internet had a similar effect on Chinese adults’ medical decisions. Conclusions Chinese adults who use the internet are a little less likely to go to the hospital than self-care. The internet has broken down the barriers to obtain knowledge of common diseases and thus has a slight substitution effect of self-care on hospital care. Internet use may increase the probability of adults going to municipal hospitals. The rising tendency of visiting high-level medical institutions may be consequently exacerbated due to knowledge monopoly of severe and complicated diseases that is difficult to eliminate, and the increase in inconsistent and incomplete medical information online will blur the residents’ cognitive boundary of common diseases and severe diseases. Exploring the substantive impact of the internet on medical decision making is of great significance for further rational planning and utilization of the internet, in order to guide patients to appropriate medical institution.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Impact of the Internet on Medical Decisions of Chinese Adults: Longitudinal Data Analysis

Ma¹,

Sun²,

Cui³

et al. 2020

J Med Internet Res

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…In the online medical consultation market, as service providers, doctors compete with each other. This competition prompts doctors to take action in terms of price and service quality based on their capabilities and market conditions to achieve higher economic and social returns [15]. When a patient buys an online medical consultation service for a specific type of disease, the patient has to select a doctor whose clinical department is related to their disease for online consultation.…”

Section: Social Stigma Of Diseasementioning

confidence: 99%

“…Online medical consultation, as one of the most popular and useful service functions, is provided for patients who need professional medical diagnosis and do not visit hospitals [13]. Doctors in online health communities have the pricing power for the online medical consultation service [12]; they can set price for the online medical consultation service based on their capabilities and circumstances [14,15]. Many studies have examined factors affecting service price and returns [11,12,16], such as doctor reputation, professional title, and hospital rank.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Exploring the Effect of Market Conditions on Price Premiums in the Online Health Community

Zhang

Han

2020

IJERPH

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Online health communities allow doctors to fully use existing medical resources to serve remote patients. They broaden and diversify avenues of interaction between doctors and patients using Internet technology, which have built an online medical consultation market. In this study, the theory of supply and demand was adopted to explore how market conditions of online doctor resources impact price premiums of doctors' online service. Then, we investigated the effect of the stigmatized diseases. We used resource supply and resource concentration to characterize the market conditions of online doctor resources and a dummy variable to categorize whether the disease is stigmatized or ordinary. After an empirical study of the dataset (including 68,945 doctors), the results indicate that: (1) the supply of online doctor resources has a significant and negative influence on price premiums; (2) compared with ordinary diseases, doctors treating stigmatized diseases can charge higher price premiums; (3) stigmatized diseases positively moderate the relationship between resource supply and price premiums; and (4) the concentration of online doctor resources has no significant influence on price premiums. Our research demonstrates that both the market conditions of online doctor resources and stigmatized diseases can impact price premiums in the online medical consultation market. The findings provide some new and insightful implications for theory and practice. returns for doctors, decreasing health disparities for society as a whole, in addition to providing other benefits [5,[9][10][11]. Currently, many online health communities provide similar online services for doctors and patients, such as Good Doctor and Chunyu Doctor in China, and Quickrxrefill, MDproactive, and Livehealthonline in the USA.Compared with doctors in physical hospitals, in online health communities, doctors have more options to choose service provision at their convenience [12]. Online medical consultation, as one of the most popular and useful service functions, is provided for patients who need professional medical diagnosis and do not visit hospitals [13]. Doctors in online health communities have the pricing power for the online medical consultation service [12]; they can set price for the online medical consultation service based on their capabilities and circumstances [14,15]. Many studies have examined factors affecting service price and returns [11,12,16], such as doctor reputation, professional title, and hospital rank. Recent studies have mainly focused on the relationships between service prices and doctors' personal characteristics, which is necessary but insufficient. Online health communities have built an online medical consultation marketplace for doctors and patients [17,18]. In this online market, doctors with strong medical skills can obtain high service fees above the average price, to charge price premiums and receive higher returns [19,20]. In our study, the research context, Good Doctor (Haodf.com), is one of the leading and typica...

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“…Px . The phase evolution diagram of its stability depends on the shape of the quadratic curve of equation (6).…”

Section: Pxmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In China, due to the huge population and uneven distribution of medical resources, a large number of hospitals are severely crowded [5]. Due to the increase in medical demand and government policies, OHP is developing rapidly in China [6]. As early as July 2015, the State Council formally issued the "Guiding Opinions on Actively Promoting the "'Internet+' Action", which clearly proposed the promotion of a new model of online health care and the development of Internet-based health care.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Tripartite Analysis of Online Healthcare Platforms: Evidence from Spring Rain Doctor in China

Xia

Zhang

et al. 2020

Preprint

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Background Online healthcare platform (OHP) is a new form of medical treatment, which solves the problems of unbalanced distribution of medical resources and expensive medical treatment in China. Especially under the epidemic of COVID-19, OHP has greatly reduced the medical pressure of the hospital and the risk of cross infection. Methods This paper uses evolutionary game theory to analyze behavioral strategies and their dynamic evolution in the promotion of OHP, and then numerical simulations are carried out with the help of program compilation. Results The results demonstrate that: (1) both the stricter qualification inspection of doctors and the more investment in information protection promote the participation of doctors and the use of patients; (2) with a higher initial probability of doctors joining, the possibility for patients in using OHP and platforms to provide standardized online healthcare services becomes higher; (3) if the initial probability of patients using is higher, the possibility for doctors to participate OHP and platforms to provide standardized online healthcare services raises; (4) the trend of doctors joining the platform is affected by factors, such as registration cost, time cost, reputation loss and so on; (5) the tendency of patients in using online healthcare is mainly decided by the cost. Conclusions Based on theoretical analysis, this article takes the Spring Rain Doctor OHP as an example to verify the game results. Therefore, OHP should attach importance to the inspection of doctors and the protection of privacy information, and strengthen the publicity in remote places. At the same time OHP can promote the active participation of grassroots doctors, and set a reasonable evaluation mechanism, so as to popularize online medical treatment among patients further.

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Exploring the Role of Online Health Community Information in Patients’ Decisions to Switch from Online to Offline Medical Services

Cited by 64 publications

References 20 publications

Impact of the Internet on Medical Decisions of Chinese Adults: Longitudinal Data Analysis

Impact of the Internet on Medical Decisions of Chinese Adults: Longitudinal Data Analysis

Exploring the Effect of Market Conditions on Price Premiums in the Online Health Community

A Tripartite Analysis of Online Healthcare Platforms: Evidence from Spring Rain Doctor in China

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