Abstract
Only the online-to-offline process has been explored, the literature is largely silent on the offline-to-online process, which restricts the online service quality and the development of Internet hospitals. We approach this issue by investigating the impact of patients’ offline visit experience on their online engagement, and then how patients’ online engagement affects the quality and efficiency of physicians’ online services. Using archival data with 69,078 online consultation records from a large tertiary hospital and its Internet hospital in China, we developed several regression models to analyze the impact of offline visit experience on patients’ online information provision and the effect of online information provision on service quality and efficiency. We identified that offline visit experience has heterogeneous effects on patients’ online information provision, and patients’ online information provision positively influences physicians’ online service quality, while negatively influencing online service efficiency. Moreover, online information provision mediates the relationship between offline visit experience and online service quality. This study contributes to our understanding of the mechanisms by which the offline visit experience influences online service quality in the online-offline channel integration context.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
Data Availability
Data are available on reasonable request from the corresponding author.
References
Aghdam, A. R., Watson, J., & Ziaimatin, H. (2018). Online value co-creation in the healthcare service ecosystem: A review. Proceedings of the 2018 Australasian Conference on Information Systems, 3–5. https://doi.org/10.5130/acis2018.cf
Akter, S., D’Ambra, J., & Ray, P. (2013). Development and validation of an instrument to measure user perceived service quality of mHealth. Information & Management, 50(4), 181–195. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.im.2013.03.001
Alasmari, A., & Zhou, L. (2021). Share to seek: The effects of disease complexity on health information–seeking behavior. Journal of Medical Internet Research, 23(3), e21642. https://doi.org/10.2196/21642
Al-dweeri, R. M., Obeidat, Z. M., Al-dwiry, M. A., Alshurideh, M. T., & Alhorani, A. M. (2017). The impact of e-service quality and e-loyalty on online shopping: Moderating effect of e-satisfaction and e-trust. International Journal of Marketing Studies, 9(2), 92–103. https://doi.org/10.5539/ijms.v9n2p92
Althoff, T., Jindal, P., & Leskovec, J. (2017). Online actions with offline impact: How online social networks influence online and offline user behavior. Proceedings of the Tenth ACM International Conference on Web Search and Data Mining, 537–546. https://doi.org/10.1145/3018661.3018672
Barello, S., Triberti, S., Graffigna, G., Libreri, C., Serino, S., Hibbard, J., & Riva, G. (2016). eHealth for patient engagement: A systematic review. Frontiers in Psychology, 6. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2015.02013
Bigne, E., Andreu, L., Hernandez, B., & Ruiz, C. (2018). The impact of social media and offline influences on consumer behaviour. An analysis of the low-cost airline industry. Current Issues in Tourism, 21(9), 1014–1032.
Blumenstock, J. E. (2008). Size matters: Word count as a measure of quality on wikipedia. Proceedings of the 17th International Conference on World Wide Web, 1095–1096. https://doi.org/10.1145/1367497.1367673
Brady, M. K., & Cronin, J. J., Jr. (2001). Some new thoughts on conceptualizing perceived service quality: A hierarchical approach. Journal of Marketing, 65(3), 34–49. https://doi.org/10.1509/jmkg.65.3.34.18334
Cao, X., Liu, Y., Zhu, Z., Hu, J., & Chen, X. (2017). Online selection of a physician by patients: Empirical study from elaboration likelihood perspective. Computers in Human Behavior, 73, 403–412. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2017.03.060
Carroll, J. S., & Anderson, N. H. (1982). Foundations of information integration theory. The American Journal of Psychology, 95(4), 708. https://doi.org/10.2307/1422202
Chang, Y.-W., Hsu, P.-Y., & Yang, Q.-M. (2018). Integration of online and offline channels: A view of O2O commerce. Internet Research, 28(4), 926–945. https://doi.org/10.1108/IntR-01-2017-0023
Chang, Y.-W., Hsu, P.-Y., Wang, Y., & Chang, P.-Y. (2019). Integration of online and offline health services: The role of doctor-patient online interaction. Patient Education and Counseling, 102(10), 1905–1910. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pec.2019.04.018
Chen, L., Baird, A., & Straub, D. (2019). Fostering participant health knowledge and attitudes: An econometric study of a chronic disease-focused online health community. Journal of Management Information Systems, 36(1), 194–229. https://doi.org/10.1080/07421222.2018.1550547
Chen, S., Guo, X., Wu, T., & Ju, X. (2020). Exploring the online doctor-patient interaction on patient satisfaction based on text mining and empirical analysis. Information Processing & Management, 57(5), 102253. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ipm.2020.102253
Chen, L., Hsieh, J.J.P.-A., Rai, A., & Xu, S. X. (2021a). How does employee infusion use of CRM systems drive customer satisfaction? Mechanism differences between face-to-face and virtual channels. Management Information Systems Quarterly, 45(2), 719–754. Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3936665
Chen, S., Guo, X., Wu, T., & Ju, X. (2021b). Exploring the influence of doctor–patient social ties and knowledge ties on patient selection. Internet Research, 32(1), 219–240. https://doi.org/10.1108/INTR-07-2020-0403
Chu, J. T., Wang, M. P., Shen, C., Viswanath, K., Lam, T. H., & Chan, S. S. C. (2017). How, when and why people seek health information online: Qualitative study in Hong Kong. Interactive Journal of Medical Research, 6(2), e7000. https://doi.org/10.2196/ijmr.7000
Costello, R. E., Anand, A., Evans, M. J., & Dixon, W. G. (2019). Associations between engagement with an online health community and changes in patient sctivation and health care utilization: Longitudinal web-based survey. Journal of Medical Internet Research, 21(8), e13477. https://doi.org/10.2196/13477
Dagger, T. S., Sweeney, J. C., & Johnson, L. W. (2007). A hierarchical model of health service quality: Scale development and investigation of an integrated model. Journal of Service Research, 10(2), 123–142. https://doi.org/10.1177/1094670507309594
Deng, Z., & Liu, S. (2017). Understanding consumer health information-seeking behavior from the perspective of the risk perception attitude framework and social support in mobile social media websites. International Journal of Medical Informatics, 105, 98–109. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijmedinf.2017.05.014
Forsythe, L. P., Carman, K. L., Szydlowski, V., Fayish, L., Davidson, L., Hickam, D. H., Hall, C., Bhat, G., Neu, D., Stewart, L., Jalowsky, M., Aronson, N., & Anyanwu, C. U. (2019). Patient engagement in research: Early findings from the patient-centered outcomes research institute. Health Affairs, 38(3), 359–367. https://doi.org/10.1377/hlthaff.2018.05067
Fu, S., Li, H., Liu, Y., Pirkkalainen, H., & Salo, M. (2020). Social media overload, exhaustion, and use discontinuance: Examining the effects of information overload, system feature overload, and social overload. Information Processing & Management, 57(6), 102307. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ipm.2020.102307
Gallino, S., & Moreno, A. (2014). Integration of online and offline channels in retail: The impact of sharing reliable inventory availability information. Management Science, 60(6), 1434–1451. https://doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2014.1951
Goes, P. B., Lin, M., & Au Yeung, C. (2014). “Popularity effect” in user-generated content: Evidence from online product reviews. Information Systems Research, 25(2), 222–238. https://doi.org/10.1287/isre.2013.0512
Graffigna, G., & Barello, S. (2015). Patient engagement in healthcare: Pathways for effective medical decision making. Neuropsychological Trends, 17, 53–65.
Guo, S., Guo, X., Fang, Y., & Vogel, D. (2017). How doctors gain social and economic returns in online health-care communities: A professional capital perspective. Journal of Management Information Systems, 34(2), 487–519. https://doi.org/10.1080/07421222.2017.1334480
Guo, S., Guo, X., Zhang, X., & Vogel, D. (2018). Doctor–patient relationship strength’s impact in an online healthcare community. Information Technology for Development, 24(2), Article 2. https://doi.org/10.1080/02681102.2017.1283287
Han, X., Du, J. T., Zhang, T., Han, W., & Zhu, Q. (2021). How online ratings and trust influence health consumers’ physician selection intentions: An experimental study. Telematics and Informatics, 62, 101631. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tele.2021.101631
Higgins, T., Larson, E., & Schnall, R. (2017). Unraveling the meaning of patient engagement: A concept analysis. Patient Education and Counseling, 100(1), 30–36. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pec.2016.09.002
Huang, K. Y., Chengalur-Smith, I., & Pinsonneault, A. (2019). Sharing is caring: Social support provision and companionship activities in healthcare virtual support communities. MIS Quarterly, 43(2), 395–423. https://doi.org/10.25300/MISQ/2019/13225
Huang, N., Yan, Z., & Yin, H. (2021). Effects of online–offline service integration on e-healthcare providers: A quasi-natural experiment. Production and Operations Management, 30(8), Article 8. https://doi.org/10.1111/poms.13381
Khaleel, I., Wimmer, B. C., Peterson, G. M., Zaidi, S. T. R., Roehrer, E., Cummings, E., & Lee, K. (2020). Health information overload among health consumers: A scoping review. Patient Education and Counseling, 103(1), 15–32. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pec.2019.08.008
Ko, D.-G., Mai, F., Shan, Z., & Zhang, D. (2019). Operational efficiency and patient-centered health care: A view from online physician reviews. Journal of Operations Management, 65(4), 353–379. https://doi.org/10.1002/joom.1028
Kock, N. (2005). Media richness or media naturalness? The evolution of our biological communication apparatus and its influence on our behavior toward E-communication tools. IEEE Transactions on Professional Communication, 48(2), 117–130. https://doi.org/10.1109/tpc.2005.849649
Kuang, L., Huang, N., Hong, Y., & Yan, Z. (2019). Spillover effects of financial incentives on non-incentivized user engagement: Evidence from an online knowledge exchange platform. Journal of Management Information Systems, 36(1), 289–320. https://doi.org/10.1080/07421222.2018.1550564
Laurance, J., Henderson, S., Howitt, P. J., Matar, M., Al Kuwari, H., Edgman-Levitan, S., & Darzi, A. (2014). Patient engagement: Four case studies that highlight the potential for improved health outcomes and reduced costs. Health Affairs, 33(9), 1627–1634. https://doi.org/10.1377/hlthaff.2014.0375
Li, Y., Song, Y., Zhao, W., Guo, X., Ju, X., & Vogel, D. (2019). Exploring the role of online health community information in patients’ decisions to switch from online to offline medical services. International Journal of Medical Informatics, 130, 103951. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijmedinf.2019.08.011
Liu, N., Finkelstein, S. R., Kruk, M. E., & Rosenthal, D. (2017). When waiting to see a doctor is less irritating: Understanding patient preferences and choice behavior in appointment scheduling. Management Science, 64(5), 1975–1996. https://doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2016.2704
Liu, S., Zhang, M., Gao, B., & Jiang, G. (2019). Physician voice characteristics and patient satisfaction in online health consultation. Information & Management, 57(5), 103233. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.im.2019.103233
Liu, S., Xiao, W., Fang, C., Zhang, X., & Lin, J. (2020). Social support, belongingness, and value co-creation behaviors in online health communities. Telematics and Informatics, 50, 101398. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tele.2020.101398
Liu, S., Yang, L., Zhang, C., Xiang, Y.-T., Liu, Z., Hu, S., & Zhang, B. (2020b). Online mental health services in China during the COVID-19 outbreak. The Lancet Psychiatry, 7(4), e17–e18. https://doi.org/10.1016/S2215-0366(20)30077-8
Miller, K. L. (2016). Patient centered care: A path to better health outcomes through engagement and activation. NeuroRehabilitation, 39(4), 465–470. https://doi.org/10.3233/NRE-161378
Mirzaei, T., & Esmaeilzadeh, P. (2021). Engagement in online health communities: Channel expansion and social exchanges. Information & Management, 58(1), 103404. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.im.2020.103404
Mudambi, S. M., & Schuff, D. (2010). Research note: What makes a helpful online review? A study of customer reviews on Amazon.com. MIS Quarterly, 185–200. https://doi.org/10.2307/20721420
Mullet, E., & Chasseigne, G. (2018). Assessing information integration processes: A comparison of findings obtained with between-subjects designs versus within-subjects designs. Quality & Quantity, 52(4), 1977–1988. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11135-017-0592-6
O’Donnell, E., & Johnson, E. N. (2001). The effects of auditor gender and task complexity on information processing efficiency. International Journal of Auditing, 5(2), 91–105. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1099-1123.2001.00328.x
Osei-Frimpong, K., Wilson, A., & Lemke, F. (2018). Patient co-creation activities in healthcare service delivery at the micro level: The influence of online access to healthcare information. Technological Forecasting and Social Change, 126, 14–27. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.techfore.2016.04.009
Ozer, M., Sapienza, A., Abeliuk, A., Muric, G., & Ferrara, E. (2020). Discovering patterns of online popularity from time series. Expert Systems with Applications, 151, 113337. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eswa.2020.113337
Peng, L., Wang, Y., & Chen, J. (2020). Consequences of gift giving in online health communities on physician service quality: Empirical text mining study. Journal of Medical Internet Research, 22(7), e18569. https://doi.org/10.2196/18569
Ratkiewicz, J., Fortunato, S., Flammini, A., Menczer, F., & Vespignani, A. (2010). Characterizing and modeling the dynamics of online popularity. Physical Review Letters, 105(15), 158701. https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.105.158701
Rueger, J., Dolfsma, W., & Aalbers, R. (2021). Perception of peer advice in online health communities: Access to lay expertise. Social Science & Medicine, 277, 113117. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2020.113117
Salman, F. S., Yücel, E., Kayı, İ, Turper-Alışık, S., & Coşkun, A. (2021). Modeling mobile health service delivery to Syrian migrant farm workers using call record data. Socio-Economic Planning Sciences, 77, 101005. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.seps.2020.101005
Sarkis, J., Gonzalez-Torre, P., & Adenso-Diaz, B. (2010). Stakeholder pressure and the adoption of environmental practices: The mediating effect of training. Journal of Operations Management, 28(2), 163–176. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jom.2009.10.001
Schwappach, D. L. B. (2010). Engaging patients as vigilant partners in safety: A systematic review. Medical Care Research and Review, 67(2), 119–148. https://doi.org/10.1177/1077558709342254
Swoboda, B., & Winters, A. (2021). Effects of the most useful offline-online and online-offline channel integration services for consumers. Decision Support Systems, 145, 113522. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.dss.2021.113522
Thompson, S., Whitaker, J., Kohli, R., & Jones, C. (2019). Chronic disease management: How IT and analytics create healthcare value through the temporal displacement of care (SSRN Scholarly Paper ID 3415199). Social Science Research Network. https://papers.ssrn.com/abstract=3415199. Accessed 29 Mar 2023.
Tu, J., Wang, C., & Wu, S. (2015). The Internet hospital: An emerging innovation in China. The Lancet Global Health, 3(8), e445–e446. https://doi.org/10.1016/S2214-109X(15)00042-X
Wang, J.-N., Chiu, Y.-L., Yu, H., & Hsu, Y.-T. (2017). Understanding a nonlinear causal relationship between rewards and physicians’ contributions in online health care communities: Longitudinal study. Journal of Medical Internet Research, 19(12), e9082. https://doi.org/10.2196/jmir.9082
Wang, Y.-Y., Guo, C., Susarla, A., & Sambamurthy, V. (2021). Online to offline: The impact of social media on offline sales in the automobile industry. Information Systems Research. https://doi.org/10.1287/isre.2020.0984
Wang, L., Yan, L. (Lucy), Zhou, T., Guo, X., & Heim, G. R. (2020). Understanding physicians’ online-offline behavior dynamics: An empirical study. Information Systems Research, 31(2), Article 2. https://doi.org/10.1287/isre.2019.0901
Wu, H., & Deng, Z. (2019). Knowledge collaboration among physicians in online health communities: A transactive memory perspective. International Journal of Information Management, 49, 13–33. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijinfomgt.2019.01.003
Wu, H., & Lu, N. (2017). Online written consultation, telephone consultation and offline appointment: An examination of the channel effect in online health communities. International Journal of Medical Informatics, 107, 107–119. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijmedinf.2017.08.009
Wu, H., & Lu, N. (2018). Service provision, pricing, and patient satisfaction in online health communities. International Journal of Medical Informatics, 110, 77–89. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijmedinf.2017.11.009
Wu, H., Deng, Z., Wang, B., & Wu, T. (2020). Online service qualities in the multistage process and patients’ compliments: A transaction cycle perspective. Information & Management, 57(5), 103230. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.im.2019.103230
Wu, H., Deng, Z., Wang, B., & Wang, H. (2021). How online health community participation affects physicians’ performance in hospitals: Empirical evidence from China. Information & Management, 103443. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.im.2021.103443
Yang, H., Guo, X., & Wu, T. (2015). Exploring the influence of the online physician service delivery process on patient satisfaction. Decision Support Systems, 78, 113–121. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.dss.2015.05.006
Yang, Y., Zhang, X., & Lee, P. K. C. (2019). Improving the effectiveness of online healthcare platforms: An empirical study with multi-period patient-doctor consultation data. International Journal of Production Economics, 207, 70–80. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijpe.2018.11.009
Yang, F., Shu, H., & Zhang, X. (2021). Understanding “Internet Plus Healthcare” in China: policy text analysis. Journal of Medical Internet Research, 23(7), e23779. https://doi.org/10.2196/23779
Yang, H., & Zhang, X. (2019). Investigating the effect of paid and free feedback about physicians’ telemedicine services on patients’ and physicians’ behaviors: Panel data analysis. Journal of Medical Internet Research, 21(3), Article 3. https://doi.org/10.2196/12156
Zhang, X., Liu, S., Chen, X., Wang, L., Gao, B., & Zhu, Q. (2018). Health information privacy concerns, antecedents, and information disclosure intention in online health communities. Information & Management, 55(4), 482–493. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.im.2017.11.003
Zhang, X., Guo, X., Ho, S. Y., Lai, K., & Vogel, D. (2021). Effects of emotional attachment on mobile health-monitoring service usage: An affect transfer perspective. Information & Management, 58(2), 103312. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.im.2020.103312
Zhang, X., Guo, X., Lai, K., & Yi, W. (2019a). How does online interactional unfairness matter for patient–doctor relationship quality in online health consultation? The contingencies of professional seniority and disease severity. European Journal of Information Systems, 28(3), Article 3. https://doi.org/10.1080/0960085X.2018.1547354
Zhang, X., Wu, Y., Valacich, J., Jenkins, J., & Li, K. (2019b). How online patient–physician interaction influences patient satisfaction. ICIS 2019b Proceedings. https://aisel.aisnet.org/icis2019/is_health/is_health/14. Accessed 29 Mar 2023.
Zhao, J., Wang, T., & Fan, X. (2015). Patient value co-creation in online health communities: Social identity effects on customer knowledge contributions and membership continuance intentions in online health communities. Journal of Service Management, 26(1), 72–96. https://doi.org/10.1108/josm-12-2013-0344
Zhu, P., Shen, J., & Xu, M. (2019). The agent-based value co-creation behaviors in online health communities and its influencing factors. IOP Conference Series: Materials Science and Engineering, 490, 062051. https://doi.org/10.1088/1757-899x/490/6/062051
Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank the editors for their guidance and the anonymous reviewers for their constructive suggestions. Also, the authors thank the cooperative institutions for providing the anonymized data.
Funding
This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) (72001087).
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Additional information
Responsible Editor: Reima Suomi
Publisher's note
Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Rights and permissions
Springer Nature or its licensor (e.g. a society or other partner) holds exclusive rights to this article under a publishing agreement with the author(s) or other rightsholder(s); author self-archiving of the accepted manuscript version of this article is solely governed by the terms of such publishing agreement and applicable law.
About this article
Cite this article
Ye, Q., Wu, H. Offline to online: The impacts of offline visit experience on online behaviors and service in an Internet hospital. Electron Markets 33, 8 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12525-023-00634-7
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12525-023-00634-7
Keywords
- Internet hospital
- Online-offline service integration
- Visit experience
- Patient engagement
- Service quality