Abstract
BackgroundOnline healthcare communities are changing the ways of physician-patient communication and how patients choose outpatient care physicians. Although a majority of empirical work has examined the role of online reviews in consumer decisions, less research has been done in health care, and endogeneity of online reviews has not been fully considered. Moreover, the important factor of physician online services has been neglected in patient decisions.ObjectiveIn this paper, we addressed the endogeneity of online reviews and examined the impact of online reviews and services on outpatient visits based on theories of reviews and channel effects.MethodsWe used a difference-in-difference approach to account for physician- and website-specific effects by collecting information from 474 physician homepages on two online health care communities.ResultsWe found that the number of reviews was more effective in influencing patient decisions compared with the overall review rating. An improvement in reviews leads to a relative increase in physician outpatient visits on that website. There are channel effects in health care: online services complement offline services (outpatient care appointments). Results further indicate that online services moderate the relationship between online reviews and physician outpatient visits.ConclusionsThis study investigated the effect of reviews and channel effects in health care by conducting a difference-in-difference analysis on two online health care communities. Our findings provide basic research on online health care communities.
Highlights
Patients often face uncertainty regarding the quality of physician services such as medical quality and bedside manner and often lack channels to access that information [1]
This study investigated the effect of reviews and channel effects in health care by conducting a difference-in-difference analysis on two online health care communities
The mean of the difference between the number of outpatient visits on Haodf and Guahao is less than zero. This is consistent with the primary functions of the websites: Haodf provides many services for patients to choose, and its primary services are online services; Guahao specializes in providing outpatient care appointments
Summary
Background Patients often face uncertainty regarding the quality of physician services such as medical quality and bedside manner and often lack channels to access that information [1]. Information disclosure of medical quality is mainly based on the hospital/nursing home/organization level. Patients are increasingly concerned about health care quality at the physician level. Information asymmetries between patients and physicians are extensive. Patients relied on social networks to learn this information, such as peer recommendations. With the growing popularity of Web 2.0 technologies, online health care communities provide a useful channel for people to get physician information and have http://medinform.jmir.org/2019/4/e16185/. The important factor of physician online services has been neglected in patient decisions
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