Publication Type

Conference Proceeding Article

Version

publishedVersion

Publication Date

12-2018

Abstract

As policy makers across the globe look to health information technology (HIT) as a meansof improving the efficiency of the healthcare systems, it has sparked significant interestin understanding how HIT might help achieve that. While researchers have examined anddocumented the efficiency-improving effect of various institution HITs (e.g., electronicclinic pathways and telemedicine), the impacts of consumer HITs such as onlinehealthcare communities have been generally overlooked. Utilizing two unique datasetsfrom both an online healthcare community and a general hospital, we study the impactof online healthcare community on offline inpatient care efficiency. Through rigorousanalysis, we find that communications between physicians and patients on the onlinehealthcare community leads to decreased inpatient cost and improved care quality. Ourfindings also underscore the importance of online physician-generated information inthis impact. Implications for healthcare practitioners and policy makers are discussed.

Keywords

Healthcare, Cost, Quality, Online Healthcare Community

Discipline

Databases and Information Systems | Health Information Technology

Research Areas

Information Systems and Management

Publication

Proceedings of International Conference on Information Systems (ICIS), San Francisco, California, USA, 2018 December 13-16

First Page

1

Last Page

17

City or Country

San Francisco, California, USA

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