Free for Caring? The Effect of Offering Free Online Medical-Consulting Services on Physician Performance in e-Health Care

Liu, Jianwei; Bian, Yiyang; Ye, Qiang; Jing, Dong

doi:10.1089/tmj.2018.0216

Cited by 24 publications

(37 citation statements)

References 23 publications

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“…First, the previous studies have seldom simultaneously considered online and offline factors when investigating doctors' behaviors in eHealth [1,2,11,16,35,36]. However, as there are close interactions between online health platforms and offline hospitals [4,7], it is not sufficient to focus solely on motivations provided by online channels.…”

Section: Theoretical Implicationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Second, few studies have incorporated expectancy theory and the BDB model to explain doctors' behaviors in eHealth [1,2,9,11]. Most of the previous studies have simply drawn direct relationships between various motivations and doctors' behavioral intentions.…”

Section: Theoretical Implicationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…From the perspective of the sense of self-worth, online health platforms are recommended to establish feedback mechanisms and show patients' real-time evaluations, such as the degree of usefulness, like button, and virtual gifts [11]. In addition, platforms can send thank you letters to thank the doctors for their dedication and exhibit the total number of patients served by the doctors and the total time invested by doctors to inspire their sense of self-achievement.…”

Section: Practical Implicationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…From the perspective of doctors, online health platforms can provide doctors with various benefits pertaining to online platforms and offline hospitals. For example, by providing satisfactory online counseling services, doctors can acquire more material rewards from increased consultations online and outpatients offline and improve their professional status [1,9,11]. Under the effect of the interaction between online health platforms and offline hospitals, both the online and offline contexts should be considered when investigating doctors' online behavioral intentions.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In addition, most of today's online health platforms, such as Good Doctor, Spring Rain Doctor, and Dingxiang Doctor, provide both free and paid counseling modes [5][6][7]. However, to the best of our knowledge, no prior research on eHealth has distinguished between doctors' behavioral intentions in relation to different charging modes, and past literature has merely investigated the relationships between motivations and single behavioral intentions [1,2,11,12].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 4 more Smart Citations

Exploring Doctors’ Willingness to Provide Online Counseling Services: The Roles of Motivations and Costs

Chen

Lan

Chang

et al. 2019

IJERPH

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With the impetus of information communication technology (ICT), emerging eHealth has attracted increasing number of doctors' participation in online health platforms, which provide various potential benefits to doctors. However, previous studies on eHealth have seldom distinguished different service modes provided by doctors. In addition, the bulk of the literature has considered doctors' motivations based solely on online environments. To fill this gap, this study combines expectancy theory and the Bagozzi, Dholakia, and Basuroy (BDB) model to examine the relationships between anticipated outcomes, performance expectations, and effort intentions from online and offline perspectives. Doctors' behavioral intentions are further divided into two categories: the willingness to offer free services and paid services. Using SmartPLS, this study conducts structural equation modeling (SEM) to analyze 311 sample data. The results show that extrinsic motivations (i.e., extrinsic rewards, expected relationships, and image) and intrinsic motivation (i.e., a sense of self-worth) significantly influence the desire to serve patients well, which in turn positively affects the willingness to offer free services and the willingness to offer paid services. Moreover, counseling time is confirmed as the main cost, which negatively moderates the relationships between desire and behavioral intentions. The findings provide theoretical insights for eHealth and provide practical suggestions to develop marketing strategies for online health platform providers.

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Section: Theoretical Implicationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Theoretical Implicationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Practical Implicationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 3 more Smart Citations

Exploring Doctors’ Willingness to Provide Online Counseling Services: The Roles of Motivations and Costs

Chen

Lan

Chang

et al. 2019

IJERPH

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

Effect of New Bundled Services on Doctors’ Online Social and Economic Returns: Evidence from an Online Health Community

Yin

Guo

et al. 2022

Inf Syst Front

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Using machine learning to explore the determinants of service satisfaction with online healthcare platforms during the COVID-19 pandemic

Liu

Fang

et al. 2023

Serv Bus

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This study investigates the determinants of service satisfaction with online healthcare platforms using machine learning (ML) algorithms. By training and testing eleven ML models based on data mined from a leading online healthcare platform in China, we obtained the best-performing ML algorithm for service satisfaction prediction, namely, Light Gradient Boosting Machine. Furthermore, our empirical results indicate that gifts, patient votes, popularity, fee-based consultation volume, gender, and thank-you letters positively impact service satisfaction, while the impacts of consultation volume, free consultation volume, views, waiting time, articles, physician title, and hospital level are negative. We discuss the theoretical and managerial implications.

show abstract

Free for Caring? The Effect of Offering Free Online Medical-Consulting Services on Physician Performance in e-Health Care

Cited by 24 publications

References 23 publications

Exploring Doctors’ Willingness to Provide Online Counseling Services: The Roles of Motivations and Costs

Exploring Doctors’ Willingness to Provide Online Counseling Services: The Roles of Motivations and Costs

Effect of New Bundled Services on Doctors’ Online Social and Economic Returns: Evidence from an Online Health Community

Using machine learning to explore the determinants of service satisfaction with online healthcare platforms during the COVID-19 pandemic

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