The Impact of the Internet on Health Consultation Market Concentration: An Econometric Analysis of Secondary Data

Jia, Li; Zhang, Ya; Ma, Liangdong; Liu, Xuan

doi:10.2196/jmir.6423

Cited by 29 publications

(35 citation statements)

References 34 publications

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“…In this study, the app and review selection strategy benefited research, with better generalization and time-efficiency. Despite many works that have discussed virtual hospitals from the perspective of economics [ 21 ] or doctors [ 9 ], this paper is the first to provide an in-depth report and highlight situations from the users’ perspective.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

User Perceptions of Virtual Hospital Apps in China: Systematic Search

Yuan¹,

Liu²,

Shi³

et al. 2020

JMIR Mhealth Uhealth

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Background Virtual hospital apps are mobile apps that offer functionalities of online consultation, medical guidance, health community forums, referrals, outpatient appointments or virtual hospital-to-home care services. With an increasing number of online medical and health care consulting services, virtual hospital apps have made health care more accessible and fairer for all, especially in China. However, they have occurred without control or regulation. User evaluation can provide directions to help apps optimize identification, lower risks, and guarantee service quality. Objective We aimed to conduct a systematic search for virtual hospital apps in China. To get a global view, virtual hospital apps were assessed and characterized by means of quantitative analysis. To get a local view, we conducted a content feedback analysis to explore user requirements, expectations, and preferences. Methods A search was conducted of the most popular Apple and Android app stores in China. We characterized and verified virtual hospital apps and grouped apps according to quantification analysis. We then crawled apps and paid attention to corresponding reviews to incorporate users’ involvement, and then performed aspect-based content labeling and analysis using an inductive approach. Results A total of 239 apps were identified in the virtual hospital app markets in China, and 2686 informative corresponding reviews were analyzed. The evidence showed that usefulness and ease of use were vital facts for engagement. Users were likely to trust a consulting service with a high number of downloads. Furthermore, users expected frequently used apps with more optimization to improve virtual service. We characterized apps according to 4 key features: (1) app functionalities, including online doctor consultation, in-app purchases, tailored education, and community forums; (2) security and privacy, including user data management and user privacy; (3) health management, including health tracking, reminders, and notifications; and (4) technical aspects, including user interface and equipment connection. Conclusions Virtual hospitals relying on the mobile internet are growing rapidly. A large number of virtual hospital apps are available and accessible to a growing number of people. Evidence from this systematic search can help various types of virtual hospital models enhance virtual health care experiences, go beyond offline hospitals, and continuously meet the needs of individual end users.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

User Perceptions of Virtual Hospital Apps in China: Systematic Search

Yuan¹,

Liu²,

Shi³

et al. 2020

JMIR Mhealth Uhealth

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show abstract

“…The effects of these mechanisms on trust improvement have been validated by many e-commerce research studies [2,3]. E-consultation is a special type of online market that focuses on delivering healthcare services online [4]. This new type of online healthcare consultation can reduce both waiting time and travel expenses [5].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Trust is even more important for the e-consultation market, because the choice of a healthcare provider is a serious decision and the healthcare market has high information asymmetry [6]. Due to the "Superstar" or the "winner-take-all" effect [4], the online healthcare market is more concentrated than the offline one. Although well-known physicians earn trust online more easily, unknown physicians experience more difficulty gaining user trust.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Impact of Joining a Team on the Initial Trust in Online Physicians

Bao

Liu

et al. 2020

Healthcare

Self Cite

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Introduction: Trust is a major challenge for the online market and this is especially the case for e-consultation platforms. Research that promotes online physician trust is highly desirable. In this study, we focus on whether joining a team led by a well-known physician will increase physician trust and what team characteristics will affect this trust. Materials and Methods: Brand extension theory is applied to the healthcare context to explain the impact of joining a team on physician trust. Specifically, both team strength and team similarity are hypothesized to have the main effects. In addition, team size is hypothesized to have a moderating effect. A 2 × 2 × 2 experiment was conducted to test the proposed research model. Results: The results indicated that joining a team would significantly increase physician trust (p < 0.001). Both team strength (p < 0.001) and team similarity (p < 0.001) had positive impacts on physician trust. In addition, a larger team size resulted in a reduced positive effect of team strength on physician trust (p < 0.001). Conclusions: Joining a physician team is an effective and low-cost method to address the initial trust problem of unknown online physicians.

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“…Many of the Web-based consultation platforms are not yet mature and suffer from online doctor scarcity [7]. Furthermore, the Web-based service market was more concentrated on highly skilled doctors’ service than the offline service market [8], which makes things worse. Attention needs to be focused on attracting doctors to promote development of Web-based consultation services.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Provision of Paid Web-Based Medical Consultation in China: Cross-Sectional Analysis of Data From a Medical Consultation Website

Li¹,

Yan²,

Song³

2019

J Med Internet Res

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BackgroundWeb-based medical consultation, which has been adopted by patients in many countries, requires a large number of doctors to provide services. However, no study has provided an overall picture of the doctors who provide online services.ObjectiveThis study sought to examine doctors’ participation in medical consultation practice in an online consultation platform. This paper aimed to address the following questions: (1) which doctors provide Web-based consultation services, (2) how many patients do the doctors get online, and (3) what price do they charge. We further explored the development of market segments in various departments and various provinces.MethodsThis study explored the dataset including all doctors providing consultation services in their spare time on a Chinese Web-based consultation platform. We also brought in statistics for doctors providing offline consultations in China. We made use of Bonferroni multiple comparison procedures and z test to compare doctors in each group.ResultsThere are 88,308 doctors providing Web-based consultation in their spare time on Haodf, accounting for 5.25% (88,308/1,680,062) of all doctors in China as of September 23, 2017. Of these online doctors, 49.9% (44,066/88,308) are high-quality doctors having a title of chief physician or associate chief physician, and 84.8% (74,899/88,308) come from the top, level 3, hospitals. Online doctors had an average workload of 0.38 patients per doctor per day, with an online and offline ratio of 1:14. The average price of online consultation is ¥32.3. The online ratios for the cancer, internal medicine, ophthalmology-otorhinolaryngology, psychiatry, gynecology-obstetrics-pediatrics, dermatology, surgery, and traditional Chinese medicine departments are 16.1% (2,983/18,481), 4.4% (16,231/372,974), 6.3% (8,389/132,725), 9.5% (1,600/16,801), 5.8% (12,955/225,128), 18.0% (3,334/18,481), 10.8% (24,030/223,448), and 3.8% (8,393/22,3448), respectively. Most provinces located in eastern China have more than 4000 doctors online. The online workloads for doctors from most provinces range from 0.3 to 0.4 patients per doctor per day. In most provinces, doctors’ charges range from ¥20 to ¥30.ConclusionsQuality doctors are more likely to provide Web-based consultation services, get more patients, and charge higher service fees in an online consultation platform. Policies and promotions could attract more doctors to provide Web-based consultation. The online submarket for the departments of dermatology, psychiatry, and gynecology-obstetrics-pediatrics developed better than other departments such as internal medicine and traditional Chinese medicine. The result could be a reference for policy making to improve the medical system both online and offline. As all the data used for analysis were from a single website, the data might be biased and might not be a representative national sample of China.

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The Impact of the Internet on Health Consultation Market Concentration: An Econometric Analysis of Secondary Data

Cited by 29 publications

References 34 publications

User Perceptions of Virtual Hospital Apps in China: Systematic Search

User Perceptions of Virtual Hospital Apps in China: Systematic Search

The Impact of Joining a Team on the Initial Trust in Online Physicians

Provision of Paid Web-Based Medical Consultation in China: Cross-Sectional Analysis of Data From a Medical Consultation Website

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