Strong And Weak Ties In Online Doctor-Patient Communication

Doctor-Patient communication is at the epicenter of the healthcare industry for the reason that it is the lynchpin of successful patient outcomes. Its successful functioning in the healthcare industry and thus the greater likelihood of a patient’s well-being, however, is undermined by a multitude of challenges, not just limited to the shortage of medical resources and other hindrances to dynamic doctor-patient communication. Web-based healthcare, such as online healthcare communities (OHCs), provide new platforms for information exchange and online communication between doctors and patients.Despite significant results indicating the benefit to patient outcomes, however, empirical research on the instrumental returns of OHCs for physicians is severely lacking. Indeed, a plethora of research has focused on the demand side (the patient side) of the equation, whereas the supply side (doctor side) has been approached more from an efficacy, quality and cost perspective. Such perspectives are developed from a framework of what could ultimately benefit the patient, and not the physician.This study seeks to fill the abovementioned research gap by empirically evaluating physicians’ individual outcomes in an OHC. Guided by social capital and social ties theory, this study evaluates the success of an OHC for the supply side of the doctor-patient relationship. Coupled with the use of structural equation modeling (SEM), this study gathers 339,010 instances of doctor-patient communication from 1,430 physicians from a website which functions as an OHC "The Good Doctor" (www.haodf.com), one of the largest Chinese OHCs in existence. This study demonstrates by this empirical survey method that both strong and weak ties can bring expected returns (i.e., economic and social) to investment in social capital motivated by cognitive investments as proposed by social capital theory. This study moreover demonstrates doctors can successfully use this website to strengthen their relationship with patients.The results also indicate a significant mediating role of strong ties to weak ties on physicians’ instrumental returns from this OHC. The theoretical implications for research are elaborated upon as well as the practical implications, such as those implicating effects on privateindustry, of such a study. Limitations regarding this study are also discussed, such that more research can be directed at filling this literature and knowledge in the future.