JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

Background:

Online medical services have become an effective supplement to traditional services in hospitals and an essential organization in medical service. Prior studies have revealed that it’s useful to shorten the delayed admission time and enhance the treatment effect from the service continuity perspective. However, what specific measures the patients and physicians should take to improve service continuity remains unknown.

Objective:

Based on the information richness theory and continuity of care, this study investigates the dynamic impacts of information continuity and interpersonal continuity on physician’ service online.

Methods:

Data of 7200 patients with 360 physicians covering complete interaction records is collected from a professional online platform in China. Content analysis is used to recognize matching patient and physician and least square regression analysis is used to get all empirical results.

Results:

Empirical results show that in the short term, information continuity (including offline experience, medical records, and detailed information) influences physicians’ online service. And, their influences show heterogeneity. Moreover, by recognizing if a patient’s online physician is the same physician who he has visited offline, we find that interpersonal continuity is also important for service. In the long term, information and interpersonal continuity positively improve service continuity by facilitating repeat purchases.

Conclusions:

Overall, our findings not only shed new light on patient behavior online and cross-channel behavior, but also provide practical insights into improving continuity of care in OHCs.