Paper Type
Short
Paper Number
1242
Description
Unlike offline context, physician-driven online health communities (OHCs) can display how physicians respond to any health-related questions from patients, whether they fall within or outside their specialty domain. Yet we do not know to what extent such physician-generated content and cross-boundary behavior relates to patients’ subsequent subscription to their online paid medical services. This study is a further theoretical exploration based on our previous empirical research. Specifically, we extend informativeness literature and category perception theory to the physician-driven OHCs context. At the information level, OHC empowers physicians to actively create professional content, which we define as specialized and generalized messages. At the identity level, OHC empowers physicians to provide interdisciplinary medical advice, allowing physicians to redefine their identity within OHCs as ‘specialists’ or ‘generalists’. Through this theoretical exploration, this study can improve our understanding of how physician-generated content influences patient subscription behavior for online services.
Recommended Citation
Li, Yan; Fang, Yulin; Liu, Xiaoxiao; and Guo, Xitong, "A Theoretical Exploration of How Physician-Generated Content Influences Patients’ Subscription Behavior for Online Medical Services" (2024). PACIS 2024 Proceedings. 1.
https://aisel.aisnet.org/pacis2024/track20_general/track20_general/1
A Theoretical Exploration of How Physician-Generated Content Influences Patients’ Subscription Behavior for Online Medical Services
Unlike offline context, physician-driven online health communities (OHCs) can display how physicians respond to any health-related questions from patients, whether they fall within or outside their specialty domain. Yet we do not know to what extent such physician-generated content and cross-boundary behavior relates to patients’ subsequent subscription to their online paid medical services. This study is a further theoretical exploration based on our previous empirical research. Specifically, we extend informativeness literature and category perception theory to the physician-driven OHCs context. At the information level, OHC empowers physicians to actively create professional content, which we define as specialized and generalized messages. At the identity level, OHC empowers physicians to provide interdisciplinary medical advice, allowing physicians to redefine their identity within OHCs as ‘specialists’ or ‘generalists’. Through this theoretical exploration, this study can improve our understanding of how physician-generated content influences patient subscription behavior for online services.
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