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Understanding Physicians’ Online-Offline Behavior Dynamics: An Empirical Study

Liuan Wang¹; Lu Yan²; Tongxin Zhou³; Xitong Guo⁴; Gregory R. Heim⁵

¹ School of Economics and Management, Beihang University, Beijing 100191, China; · ² Department of Operations and Decision Technologies, Kelley School of Business, Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana 47405 · ³ Department of Information Systems and Operations Management, Michael G. Foster School of Business, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington 98195; · ⁴ School of Management, Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin 150080, China; · ⁵ Department of Information & Operations Management, Mays Business School, Texas A&M University, College Station, Texas 77843

Online healthcare platforms allow physicians and patients to communicate in a timely manner. Yet little is known about how physicians’ online and offline activities affect each other and, consequently, the healthcare system. We collected data from both online and offline channels to study physicians’ online-offline behavior dynamics. We find that physicians’ online activities can lead to a higher service quantity in offline channels, whereas offline activities may reduce physicians’ online services because of resource constraints. We also find that the more offline patients that physicians serve, the more articles the physicians will likely share in online healthcare platforms. These findings are of great importance to practitioners and policy makers. Our work provides evidence that online healthcare platforms supplement offline services and thus lessen the concern that physicians’ participation in online healthcare platforms will negatively influence offline healthcare services. Our findings also indicate the need for the improvement of online-offline coordination and better system design.

DOI

10.1287/isre.2019.0901

Volume

31 (2)

Pages

537-555

Language

en

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BibTeX

Sources

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