Enabling Consumer-Driven Service Innovation in Health Care: The Role of Online Health Information Technologies (HIT)

Abstract

AbstractIn the past few years, consumer participation in health care has increased significantly with the ready availability of medical information on health websites and the ability to interact in disease-focused online health communities. Importantly, such consumer participation also involves creating new knowledge based on consumers’ direct experiences with particular diseases and treatments – new knowledge that could lead to new or improved services. Such consumer-driven service innovation has assumed critical importance as most healthcare organizations come under considerable pressure to enhance the value they offer to their consumers (or patients). In this chapter, we argue that an important task for value-driven healthcare organizations is to facilitate consumer driven service innovation in health care through appropriate use of online health information technologies. We adopt a knowledge creation perspective and propose a theoretical framework that explains how health websites and online health communities together can facilitate creation of innovative service ideas through knowledge socialization, combination, externalization, and internalization. Implications for future research on the role of IT in service innovation in health care are discussed. The implications for strategies and practices adopted by healthcare organizations are also examined.KeywordsConsumer participationService innovationHealth careKnowledge creation