Consumer Value Preferences in Healthcare: Insights for Value-centred Management

Abstract

Advances in healthcare service research emphasize a value-driven approach in healthcare by pressing the need to acknowledge what matters to the patient against the conventional approach of what should be provisioned in the service. This research study adopts a consumer-centric perspective of value creation, and explores consumer value preferences in healthcare services, using netnography of online consumer reviews of cancer patients. Six different types of consumer value are identified, which carry varying consumer expectations. These are excellence, novelty, spirituality, ethics, privacy and control. The research findings confirm that all types of consumer values are not positive; rather, there is a presence of positive and negative (or must-be) elements. Privacy and ethics are identified as the negative or must-be type of consumer value, which creates not much satisfaction, but their absence is dissatisfying. Novelty and control are identified as positive value types whose absence may not be that problematic, but their enhancement creates greater customer satisfaction. The findings provide shreds of evidence to the claim that all value types are not positive, and consumers often make trade-offs between positive and negative value types while evaluating services. Future research is suggested in different healthcare contexts (e.g., chronic vs. non-chronic disease) to develop value-centred management strategies.