Publication Type
Conference Proceeding Article
Version
acceptedVersion
Publication Date
12-2021
Abstract
In online healthcare communities, channel integration services have become the bridge between online and offline channels, enabling patients to easily migrate across channels. Different from pure online services, online-to-offline (On2Off) and offline-to-online (Off2On) channel integration services involve both channels. This study examines the interrelationships between pure online services and channel integration services. Using a panel dataset composed of data from an online healthcare community, we find that pure online services decrease patients’ demand for On2Off integration services but increase their use of Off2On integration services. Our findings suggest that providing healthcare services online can reduce online patients’ needs to visit physicians offline and convert physicians’ offline patients into online patients. We further confirm that the substitution effect of online services for offline visits is driven by physicians’ medical responses to patients’ online enquiries. Our work contributes to the literature on online healthcare communities and channel integration in delivering healthcare services.
Discipline
Databases and Information Systems | Health Information Technology
Research Areas
Information Systems and Management
Publication
Proceedings of 42nd International Conference on Information Systems, ICIS 2021, Austin, Texas, December 12-15
First Page
1
Last Page
18
Publisher
AIS
City or Country
Austin, Texas
Citation
ZHAO, Anqi and TANG, Qian.
Channel integration services in online healthcare communities. (2021). Proceedings of 42nd International Conference on Information Systems, ICIS 2021, Austin, Texas, December 12-15. 1-18.
Available at: https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/sis_research/6593
Copyright Owner and License
Authors
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 International License.
Additional URL
https://aisel.aisnet.org/icis2021/is_health/is_health/17