Better inpatient health quality at lower cost: Should I participate in the online healthcare community first?

• Main Authors: LUO, Kai, WANG, Qiu-Hong, TEO, Hock Hai, CHEN, Xi
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Institutional Knowledge at Singapore Management University 2018
• Subjects: Healthcare; Cost; Quality; Online Healthcare Community; Databases and Information Systems; Health Information Technology
• Online Access: https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/sis_research/4335; https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/context/sis_research/article/5338/viewcontent/Better_Inpatient_Health_Quality_at_Lower_Cost__Should_I_Participa.pdf
• Institution: Singapore Management University

As policy makers across the globe look to health information technology (HIT) as a meansof improving the efficiency of the healthcare systems, it has sparked significant interestin understanding how HIT might help achieve that. While researchers have examined anddocumented the efficiency-improving effect of various institution HITs (e.g., electronicclinic pathways and telemedicine), the impacts of consumer HITs such as onlinehealthcare communities have been generally overlooked. Utilizing two unique datasetsfrom both an online healthcare community and a general hospital, we study the impactof online healthcare community on offline inpatient care efficiency. Through rigorousanalysis, we find that communications between physicians and patients on the onlinehealthcare community leads to decreased inpatient cost and improved care quality. Ourfindings also underscore the importance of online physician-generated information inthis impact. Implications for healthcare practitioners and policy makers are discussed.