Understanding the Effects of Emergency Experience on Online First-Aid Learning Intention: The Mediating Role of Psychological Distances and Prosociality.

The fast-paced lifestyle resulting from China's rapid economic development has caused more than 500 million sudden cardiac deaths in 2020. Online first-aid education for the public is considered a key potential solution to avoid such incidents and would have great practical value. This study focuses on understanding the impact of past first-aid experience on the intention for online learning of first-aid knowledge and skills from the perspective of individual psychological factors based on the construction level and prosociality theories. More specifically, it tests the mediating roles of psychological distances and prosociality, which reflect psychological status, in the relationship between experience and learning intention along with a series of associated demographic variables. Primary data collected via a survey are analyzed through regression analysis. The results show that first-aid experience has a significant positive impact on online first-aid learning intention. In addition, psychological distances from first-aid events, and prosociality, play mediating roles in the relationship between first-aid experience and learning intention. Thus, this study contributes to understanding first-aid learning intention by revealing the impact of the individual factors of psychological distances and prosociality.

Exploring Patients' Intentions for Continuous Usage of mHealth Services: Elaboration-Likelihood Perspective Study.

BACKGROUND: With the increasingly rapid development of Web 2.0 technologies, the application of mobile health (mHealth) care in the field of health management has become popular. Accordingly, patients are able to access consulting services and effective health information online without temporal and geographical constraints. The elaboration-likelihood model (ELM) is a dual-process persuasion theory that describes the change of attitudes and behavior. OBJECTIVE: In this study, we drew on the ELM to investigate patients' continuous usage intentions regarding mHealth services. In addition, we further examined which route-central or peripheral-has a stronger impact on a patient's usage of health care management. METHODS: To meet these objectives, five hypotheses were developed and empirically validated using a field survey to test the direct and indirect effects, via attitude, of the two routes on continuous usage intention. RESULTS: We found that patients' perceived mHealth information quality and perceived mHealth system quality had a positive effect on their personal attitudes. The results revealed that social media influence had a positive effect on a patient's attitude toward mHealth services. In particular, our findings suggest that a patient's health consciousness has a positive effect on the relationship between social media influence and attitude. CONCLUSIONS: This study contributes to the mHealth services literature by introducing the ELM as a referent theory for research, as well as by specifying the moderating role of health consciousness. For practitioners, this study introduces influence processes as policy tools that managers can employ to motivate the uptake of mHealth services within their organizations.

Exploring the Impact of the Rational Antibiotic Use System on Hospital Performance: The Direct Effect and the Spillover Effect.

Irrational antibiotic usage not only causes an increase in antibiotic-borne diseases, but also inflicts pain on patients, as a result of inappropriate treatment. In order to resolve the hazards caused by irrational antibiotic usage, a kind of e-health service, the Rational Antibiotic Use System (RAUS), has been incorporated into the hospital information system. The RAUS provides doctors and patients with the functions of antibiotic usage monitoring, antibiotic information consultation and antibiotic prescription support. Though existing literature has already proved the usefulness of the RAUS on monitoring doctors' behavior, the effects on hospital performance from an organizational perspective has rarely been measured by empirical data. Therefore, our study has explored the effects of the RAUS on the performance of a large Chinese hospital, which has implemented the RAUS since March 2014. Through empirical research, we quantified the effects of the implementation of the RAUS on a hospital's performance from both the direct effects on the "drug income" and the spillover effect on the "treatment income". The results indicate a significant positive spillover effect on the treatment incomes of a hospital in its inpatient activities (seen as significant in the long term) and in its outpatient activities (seen as significant in both the short and long terms). In addition, this research provides certain theoretical and practical implications for the dilemma of e-health services application in irrational antibiotic usage.

Exploring the Role of Online Health Community Information in Patients' Decisions to Switch from Online to Offline Medical Services.

BACKGROUND: Online healthcare has become an important part of healthcare services. Patients can access unlimited information reflecting a doctor's service quality in online health communities (OHCs). This information can reduce information asymmetry between patients and doctors, and further promote patient decisions. In this study, we focus on the patient's decision to switch from a doctor's online medical service to the same doctor's offline service. OBJECTIVES: We classify OHC information into objective information and subjective information. Following this, we investigate how these two types of information influence patient decisions to switch from a doctor's online to offline medical service, and explore the nature of interaction between the two types of influence. METHODS: We collected data from a leading OHC in China and constructed a longitudinal dataset to examine our research questions. To control for doctor heterogeneity and common trends across time, we leveraged fixed effects at the doctor level and monthly fixed effects in our models, respectively. RESULTS: Our findings demonstrate a strong relationship between OHC information and patient decisions to switch from a doctor's online to offline medical service. Patients are more likely to switch from online to offline medical services with doctors whose subjective and objective information on their homepages indicate a higher quality (ßSubjective = 0.001, p < 0.001; αObjective = 0.019, p < 0.002). We also observe that patients prefer doctors who do not exhibit objective information that indicates low-quality service over those who show such information on their homepages, even though the chosen doctor provides a lower-quality service (αLow_Objective = -0.032, p < 0.006). Further, we find that the influence of subjective information on patient decisions crowds out the influence of objective information. CONCLUSION: This study investigates the role of subjective and objective information on patient decisions to switch from a doctor's online to offline medical service and the interaction effect between these two types of information. This study provides valuable theoretical and practical implications.

Exploring the Effects of Online Rating and the Activeness of Physicians on the Number of Patients in an Online Health Community.

Introduction: With the rapid development of information technology and online communities, patients in growing numbers choose to consult physicians in online health communities (OHCs) for information and treatment. Although many researchers have examined OHCs, the impact of physicians' online rating and activeness on patient consultation choice, which is reflected by the number of patients in OHCs, has rarely been discussed.Methods: A computer program was developed to download the required data. We collected data from 8,401 physicians from an online health community, Good Doctor Online, and analyzed data with Stata. An empirical model was conducted to explore the factors that influence the number of patients who consult a physician in OHCs.Results: The results indicate that the online rating and activeness of physicians have positive effects on the number of patients. Furthermore, the physician's professional seniority and hospital rank significantly moderate this positive relationship. As hospital levels increase, the impacts of the online rating and activeness on the number of patients decrease. In addition, the online rating has a weaker influence on the number of patients when a physician has a high professional seniority.Conclusions: It is important to understand what factors influence the number of patients who choose to consult physicians in OHCs. This study aims to explore the effects of online rating and activeness of physicians on the number of patients, as well as the moderating effects of the physician's professional seniority and hospital rank. Our results have implications for existing health management and e-health literature, and OHC designers.

Exploring Patients' Consultation Behaviors in the Online Health Community: The Role of Disease Risk.

INTRODUCTION: An online health community (OHC) is a unique social network that provides a platform for sharing healthcare information, communicating about health and offering health services. While many researchers have examined OHCs, the impact of patient reviews on patient consultation behavior in the OHCs has rarely been discussed in the existing literature. METHODS: A computer program was developed to download the required information. This process was conducted monthly to capture the variation in the dependent variable. RESULTS: By analyzing data from 907 physicians from the "Good Doctor Online" website, we found that online and offline patient reviews significantly affected the number of patient telephone consultations. In addition, disease risk significantly moderated the relationship between reviews and telephone consultations. Patients with high-risk diseases tended to pay more attention to offline patient reviews. In contrast, patients with low-risk diseases paid more attention to online service reviews. CONCLUSION: It is important to explore the underlying mechanisms by which online versus offline reviews influence patients to undertake certain behaviors. This study aimed to explore the impact of online and offline reviews on patients' consultation behaviors and examine the moderating role of disease risk. Our results have implications for existing health management and e-health literature.