Impacts of Online Reviews and Offline Attributes on Choosing Doctors Online
Description
As a new type of online health communities (OHC), online doctor consultation services (ODCS) enables doctors deliver healthcare directly to patients by consultation. Patients can use both online attributes, such as reviews, and offline attributes, such as position rank, of doctors to choose the consultation provider. However, it is uncertain whether the online review is really used by patients, and existing literature shows contradictory evidence. This paper attempts to reconcile such problem and identify factors affecting patients’ decision. Results show that online review does affect patients choose doctor, although offline attributes are also considered. Online review can weaken the effect of doctor’s position rank and the effect of hospital tier level is insignificant, suggesting patients care more about online review than the doctor’s position and hospital. Our findings can help doctors design their strategy of online service, also help ODCS refine their system design so that consultation matching is optimized.
Impacts of Online Reviews and Offline Attributes on Choosing Doctors Online
As a new type of online health communities (OHC), online doctor consultation services (ODCS) enables doctors deliver healthcare directly to patients by consultation. Patients can use both online attributes, such as reviews, and offline attributes, such as position rank, of doctors to choose the consultation provider. However, it is uncertain whether the online review is really used by patients, and existing literature shows contradictory evidence. This paper attempts to reconcile such problem and identify factors affecting patients’ decision. Results show that online review does affect patients choose doctor, although offline attributes are also considered. Online review can weaken the effect of doctor’s position rank and the effect of hospital tier level is insignificant, suggesting patients care more about online review than the doctor’s position and hospital. Our findings can help doctors design their strategy of online service, also help ODCS refine their system design so that consultation matching is optimized.