Exploring the influence of the online physician service delivery process on patient satisfaction

The vibrant and rapid advancement of Web 2.0 technologies has made it possible for online health communities to provide convenient platforms that enable patients to consult physicians online. Healthcare services are related to issues of mortality and quality of life for patients, hence studies on online healthcare services and patient satisfaction continue to be fundamentally important as healthcare practices evolve and change. Although many studies have investigated the benefits of the online health community and motivation of participants, there has been scant research on the influence of the online physician service quality with regard to patient satisfaction. This paper is based on service quality model and the customer characteristics theory, as well as the analysis of data from the online health community. It verifies that online physician service delivery processes significantly affect patient satisfaction, specifically with respect to response speed and interaction frequency. Moreover, this paper examines how a patient's disease risk moderates the relationship between the service delivery process and satisfaction. The empirical results of this paper support all our hypotheses. This paper contributes to online service quality and e-health literature by investigating the effects of the physician service delivery process on patient satisfaction. Online health communities provide platforms for patients to consult physicians onlineWe verify the effects of service delivery process from two perspectives, i.e., response speed and interaction frequency.We find that physicians' response speed positively impact patients' satisfaction.We find that the physicians' interaction frequency positively impact patients' satisfaction.We also investigate that disease risk moderates the relationship between service delivery and patients' satisfaction.

[1]  Ruth N. Bolton,et al.  A Multistage Model of Customers' Assessments of Service Quality and Value , 1991 .

[2]  David Gefen,et al.  The impact of personal dispositions on information sensitivity, privacy concern and trust in disclosing health information online , 2010, Decis. Support Syst..

[3]  Sally K. Widener,et al.  Linking Customer Satisfaction to the Service Concept and Customer Characteristics , 2008 .

[4]  Vedat Verter,et al.  An Analytical Framework for Designing Community‐Based Care for Chronic Diseases , 2011 .

[5]  Riadh Ladhari,et al.  Service quality, emotional satisfaction, and behavioural intentions: A study in the hotel industry , 2009 .

[6]  Shannon W. Anderson,et al.  Drivers of Service Satisfaction , 2008 .

[7]  Olivia R. Liu Sheng,et al.  e-SELFQUAL: A scale for measuring online self-service quality , 2011 .

[8]  Izak Benbasat,et al.  Addressing the What and How of Online Services: Positioning Supporting-Services Functionality and Service Quality for Business-to-Consumer Success , 2008, Inf. Syst. Res..

[9]  H. Raghav Rao,et al.  Factors influencing online health information search: An empirical analysis of a national cancer-related survey , 2014, Decis. Support Syst..

[10]  Rohit Verma,et al.  Self‐service technology and online financial service choice , 2007 .

[11]  T. Keiningham,et al.  A Longitudinal Analysis of Customer Satisfaction and Share of Wallet: Investigating the Moderating Effect of Customer Characteristics , 2007 .

[12]  Thanika Devi Juwaheer,et al.  Relationships and impacts of service quality, perceived value, customer satisfaction, and image: an empirical study , 2009 .

[13]  K. Arrow Uncertainty and the welfare economics of medical care. 1963. , 2004, Bulletin of the World Health Organization.

[14]  Kallol Kumar Bagchi,et al.  An assessment of customers' e-service quality perception, satisfaction and intention , 2010, Int. J. Inf. Manag..

[15]  Richard T. Vidgen,et al.  An Evaluation of Cyber-Bookshops: The WebQual Method , 2001, Int. J. Electron. Commer..

[16]  A. Parasuraman,et al.  Alternative scales for measuring service quality: A comparative assessment based on psychometric and diagnostic criteria , 1994 .

[17]  J. de Haes,et al.  Doctor-patient communication: a review of the literature. , 1995, Social science & medicine.

[18]  S. Akinci,et al.  Re-assessment of E-S-Qual and E-RecS-Qual in a pure service setting , 2010 .

[19]  Ronald Epstein,et al.  Relationship, communication, and efficiency in the medical encounter: creating a clinical model from a literature review. , 2008, Archives of internal medicine.

[20]  S. Ziebland,et al.  How the internet affects patients' experience of cancer: a qualitative study , 2004, BMJ : British Medical Journal.

[21]  V. Mittal,et al.  Satisfaction, Repurchase Intent, and Repurchase Behavior: Investigating the Moderating Effect of Customer Characteristics , 2001 .

[22]  P. Danaher Customer Heterogeneity in Service Management , 1998 .

[23]  M. Stewart,et al.  The influence of older patient-physician communication on health and health-related outcomes. , 2000, Clinics in geriatric medicine.

[24]  Sourabh Sharma,et al.  AN ASSESSMENT OF CUSTOMERS' E-SERVICE QUALITY PERCEPTION THROUGH WEBQUAL SCALE: A STUDY ON ONLINE BANKING SERVICES , 2015 .

[25]  A. Parasuraman,et al.  Service quality delivery through web sites: A critical review of extant knowledge , 2002, Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science.

[26]  A. Parasuraman,et al.  Communication and Control Processes in the Delivery of Service Quality , 1988 .

[27]  R. Oliver A Cognitive Model of the Antecedents and Consequences of Satisfaction Decisions , 1980 .

[28]  Sulin Ba,et al.  An Exploratory Study of the Impact of E-Service Process on Online Customer Satisfaction , 2006 .

[29]  Sulin Ba,et al.  Digital health communities: The effect of their motivation mechanisms , 2013, Decis. Support Syst..

[30]  K. Manjunatha,et al.  Service Quality � I , 2004 .

[31]  C. Grönroos An Applied Service Marketing Theory , 1982 .

[32]  Ephraim R. McLean,et al.  The DeLone and McLean Model of Information Systems Success: A Ten-Year Update , 2003, J. Manag. Inf. Syst..

[33]  G. Kaplan,et al.  Perceived health and mortality: a nine-year follow-up of the human population laboratory cohort. , 1983, American journal of epidemiology.

[34]  J. H. Gittell Relationships between Service Providers and Their Impact on Customers , 2002 .

[35]  A. Parasuraman,et al.  A Conceptual Model of Service Quality and Its Implications for Future Research , 1985 .

[36]  John Ruskin,et al.  Satisfaction , 2005, BMJ : British Medical Journal.

[37]  J. Rumsfeld,et al.  Depressive symptoms and health-related quality of life: the Heart and Soul Study. , 2003, JAMA.

[38]  A. Parasuraman,et al.  Reassessment of Expectations as a Comparison Standard in Measuring Service Quality: Implications for Further Research , 1994 .

[39]  S. Shekhar Problems and Strategies in Services Marketing , 2003 .

[40]  F. Wangenheim Situational Characteristics as Moderators of the Satisfaction-Loyalty Link: An Investigation in a Business-to-Business Context , 2003 .

[41]  V. Zeithaml,et al.  E-S-QUAL A Multiple-Item Scale for Assessing Electronic Service Quality , 2004 .

[42]  David C. Yen,et al.  Improving the quality of online presence through interactivity , 2004, Inf. Manag..

[43]  A. Parasuraman,et al.  The Behavioral Consequences of Service Quality , 1996 .

[44]  Prashant C. Palvia,et al.  Developing and validating an instrument for measuring user-perceived web quality , 2002, Inf. Manag..

[45]  C. Fornell,et al.  A Framework for Comparing Customer Satisfaction across Individuals and Product Categories , 1991 .

[46]  Tao Zhou,et al.  The Relative Importance of Website Design Quality and Service Quality in Determining Consumers’ Online Repurchase Behavior , 2009, Inf. Syst. Manag..

[47]  R. Oliver Effect of expectation and disconfirmation on postexposure product evaluations: An alternative interpretation. , 1977 .