Understanding a moderating effect of physicians' endorsement to online workload: An empirical study in online health-care communities

摘要

In online health-care community (OHC), patients can choose which physician would provide the expert consultation service. However, the success of registered service depends on many factors including online contributions by physicians in the OHC. This study investigates the moderating effect of physicians' endorsement on their online workload. With data from a leading OHC in China, we designed an empirical study involving 140156 records. The results show that for the physician's contribution behavior, the standardized coefficient was 0.317, and the standardized coefficient of the physician's popularity was 1.588. All estimates were statistically significantly at a 0.1% level. Our study discovered that the popularity of physicians plays a main role in gaining registered service, and their online contributions also increase the volume of this service. Moreover, the physicians from tertiary hospitals, with more thank letters and from larger cities were more potential to gain OHC service, comparing with physicians with higher position, with longer profile words, awards and longer relationship time.