Graduate School of Technology Management, Ritsumeikan University, Ibaraki 567-8570, Japan.
School of Communication, East China University of Political Science and Law, Shanghai 201620, China.
Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2022 Sep 28;19(19):12384. doi: 10.3390/ijerph191912384.
The COVID-19 epidemic put pressure on the traditional healthcare system and offline consultation methods. Telemedicine platforms provide a more convenient and safer channel for online health communication. Based on the signaling theory, our study explores the impacts of three dimensions of physicians' service quality (need fulfillment, security, and responsiveness) on online patient consultation on telemedicine platforms. A negative binomial model was used to test cross-sectional data of 2982 physicians obtained from Haodf.com. The results show the following: (1) the need fulfillment dimension variables positively affect online patient consultation; (2) the security dimension variables positively affect online patient consultation; (3) the responsiveness dimension variables positively affect online patient consultation. Our results contribute to the theoretical aspect of signaling theory and service quality in the context of telemedicine platforms and have several practical implications for telemedicine platform physicians and platform operators.
新冠疫情给传统医疗体系和线下咨询方式带来了压力。远程医疗平台为在线健康交流提供了更加便捷、安全的渠道。基于信号传递理论，本研究探讨了医生服务质量的三个维度（需求满足、安全保障和响应性）对远程医疗平台上在线患者咨询的影响。我们使用负二项式模型检验了来自好大夫在线平台的 2982 名医生的横截面数据。研究结果表明：（1）需求满足维度变量对在线患者咨询有正向影响；（2）安全保障维度变量对在线患者咨询有正向影响；（3）响应性维度变量对在线患者咨询有正向影响。本研究的结果丰富了远程医疗平台背景下信号传递理论和服务质量理论的研究，对远程医疗平台医生和平台运营者具有一定的实践意义。
