The role of multiple online information sources in enhancing physicians’ healthcare quality
摘要
This paper studies how multiple information, namely, physician-generated information and other-generated information (online reviews and consultation volume), jointly affect online healthcare quality enhancement decisions. We build a two-period service enhancement model consisting of high- and low-quality physicians and consumers who are unsure of the healthcare quality. Additionally, consultation volume is random because some healthcare platforms offer rapid medical consultation services using algorithms to randomly match physicians with random consumers. We find that: (i) contrary to the wisdom that more information can improve healthcare enhancement investment and profits, the incentive impact of information disclosure also depends on several factors, including the scale of random consultation volume, the magnitude of the enhancement cost and how consumers infer the quality difference from physician-generated information; (ii) the accuracy of online reviews and consultation volume influence the online registered physicians’ strategies. Such findings offer guidelines for designing effective information disclosure policies in the online healthcare market.