Search results

This study aims to explore the different dimensions of e-healthcare ethics and their relationships, influencing the ethical concerns of the consumer in making ethical e-healthcare choices.

A study was conducted at two identified major hospitals of Punjab (a private hospital) and Chandigarh (a public hospital), India providing e-healthcare services with the help of a self-administered questionnaire. The respondents were identified from the waiting areas of the selected hospitals, and only those respondents were selected for the study, who agreed to be aware of e-health services and were using them for some time. The statistical analysis was done using the structural equation modeling technique and included both exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis using SPSS 20 and AMOS 21.

Exploratory factor analysis extracted five dimensions of ethical concerns of the consumer, which include service promotion, content quality, candor, professionalism and confidentiality. The results signify that content quality plays a significant role in ethics, followed by candor, service promotion and confidentiality. However, the relationship with professionalism did not prove to be significant for the ethical concerns of the e-health consumer.

This research delivers a practical significance in identifying the critical dimensions of the ethical concerns of the consumer while selecting e-health services. It gives an insight into the various dimensions, which should be considered by the e-health providers while crafting e-health services to make it more ethically acceptable by the consumers.

By using e-health services, consumers play an active role in their health-care decisions. The consumers need to consider ethics while choosing health-care services as an ethical judgment will also be the correct judgment. This study helps in the identification of the significant dimensions for the ethical concerns of the consumers.

The internet provides a wide range of technologies that enable health professionals to communicate with people. It ultimately may soon be the primary source for an individual searching for healthcare information, even for emerging economies such as Turkey. This study aims to examine how perceived benefits, perceived quality, and reliability of electronic health (e‐health) information affect intention to repeat e‐health information search behavior.

Through an announcement on one of the well‐known health web sites in Turkey, 376 out of 386 valid and complete responses were received via an online survey. The data were analyzed using exploratory factor analysis and multiple regressions analysis.

Results of the study indicate that the personal health issues component of perceived benefit has received the most consistent support as the factor that influences future health information search intention on the internet.

Research findings show that consumers use health web sites as a complementary tool rather than self‐diagnosing. Considering this, suggestions were made for web site designers to concentrate on information needs of consumers especially on personal health issues. Nevertheless, scope of data collection and focusing on intention rather than actual e‐health search behavior are the limitations of this study.

The internet was used by 45 percent of Turkish internet users for searching health‐related information approximately in 2009. So, how do these e‐health information seekers evaluate the benefits, quality, and reliability of e‐health information? Do benefits, quality, and reliability of e‐health information affect future e‐health information search intention? This study is unique in addressing all these questions for Turkish internet users.

This paper aims to investigate the perception of Egyptian patients about the use of personal health records (PHRs).

A quantitative research methodology was adopted in the form of a survey.

Over one-third of the selected sample was found to use PHRs. The study found that the use of PHRs by Egyptian patients was moderate. All PHRs users confirmed that they were very interested in the doctors’ notes and the laboratory reports recorded in their records. A very large number of PHR users confirmed that their use of these records was at least fairly easy for them and all of them confirmed that the use of these records was at least fairly useful. Above two-third of PHR users answered at least “somewhat yes” that their PHRs were accurate and over half of them answered at least “somewhat yes” that their PHRs were complete. The highest percentage of PHR users agreed that the use of PHRs would enhance their trust in their doctors and nurses. Close to half of PHR users expressed some concern about sharing their records. Violation of privacy in the use of these medical records, followed by the complexity of using them, as well as lack of awareness about them, was also significant to PHR users.

Understanding Egyptian patients perceptions of using PHRs may significantly aid in eliminating barriers and accelerating the adoption and use of these records to improve patient care.

The overall purpose of this empirically validated research paper is to determine factors that impact the success of using social media channels by consumers for salvaging health-care information by integrating constructs of the information system (IS) success model, e-health service quality and perceived usefulness during pre- and post-COVID settings.

Online survey responses of 243 consumers for study 1 and 184 consumers for study 2 were validated using factor analysis to understand consumers’ attitudes toward social media use. Constructs from existing literature and theories have been extracted to develop the proposed model, which has been empirically validated through statistical tests. A paired-samples t-test was also conducted to compare the customer satisfaction mean of pre- and post-COVID conditions; and word of mouth (WOM) for pre- and post-COVID conditions.

The outcome of this study supports that service quality and information quality conclusively influence customer satisfaction of consumers for health-care information among respondents pre COVID, and service quality, perceived usefulness and information quality conclusively affect customer satisfaction of consumers for health-care information among respondents post COVID. Furthermore, the e-health service quality contributes noteworthy in shaping the consumers’ satisfaction with social media usage for study 2 and information quality for study 1. A paired-samples t-test revealed that the two groups behaved significantly differently for customer satisfaction and WOM in the two groups.

At prima facie, this study has a geographical limitation for the sample size. The respondents for the online research were from the urban suburb of Bengaluru, India. The data collection has not focused on any precise social media channel.

Identification and comprehension of constructs that influence consumer satisfaction related to social media usage for health-care information can assist health-care managers in developing appropriate strategies for consumers to maximize social media usage. Moreover, this study provides an insight into the consumer’s perception of using social media channels for seeking health-care information.

This study recommends an empirically validated model for the success of social media in a consumer setting for the health-care scenario. This research is a unique attempt that inspects social media satisfaction by adapting constructs from existing theories of the IS success model, e-health service quality and perceived usefulness.

Health service quality is an important determinant for health service satisfaction and behavioral intentions. The purpose of this paper is to investigate requirements of e‐health services and to develop a measurement model to analyze the construct of “perceived e‐health service quality.”

The paper adapts the C‐OAR‐SE procedure for scale development by Rossiter. The focal aspect is the “physician‐patient relationship” which forms the core dyad in the healthcare service provision. Several in‐depth interviews were conducted in Switzerland; first with six patients (as raters), followed by two experts of the healthcare system (as judges). Based on the results and an extensive literature research, the classification of object and attributes is developed for this model.

The construct e‐health service quality can be described as an abstract formative object and is operationalized with 13 items: accessibility, competence, information, usability/user friendliness, security, system integration, trust, individualization, empathy, ethical conduct, degree of performance, reliability, and ability to respond.

Limitations include the number of interviews with patients and experts as well as critical issues associated with C‐OAR‐SE. More empirical research is needed to confirm the quality indicators of e‐health services.

Health care providers can utilize the results for the evaluation of their service quality. Practitioners can use the hierarchical structure to measure service quality at different levels. The model provides a diagnostic tool to identify poor and/or excellent performance with regard to the e‐service delivery.

The paper contributes to knowledge with regard to the measurement of e‐health quality and improves the understanding of how customers evaluate the quality of e‐health services.

This study aims to investigate the user’s behavior and intention to continue using e-health services by analyzing the factors influencing their decision. The stimuli–organism–behavior–consequence (SOBC) framework was used to assess how the risks and benefits of e-health influence both behavioral intention (BI) and continued use.

The hypotheses proposed for this study were tested with partial least square-based structural equation modeling. This study relied on the primary data collected from 572 respondents using convenient sampling.

This study examined the SOBC model’s four phases’ with the help of eight constructs. The conceptual model allowed the authors to examine 10 relationships to measure e-health adoption behavior in emerging nations like India. This study found that convenience, perceived risk and facilitating conditions are positively related to the effort and performance expectancy (PE) associated with e-health consultation. Only social influence is unrelated. This study also found a positive and substantial relationship between BI, effort and PE.

The study uses the unified theory of acceptance and use of technology and the SOBC paradigm to determine the factors influencing users’ intentions to use e-health. In addition to bringing new aspects to the existing literature on technology adoption and e-health consultation, the results of this study will aid e-health service providers in formulating strategies to promote the usage of e-health in emerging economies like India.

The purpose of this research is to examine the potential of e‐health by focusing explicitly on the delivery of health care products and services. The examination of e‐health activity is guided by one broad research question, “What is the potential for constructing e‐health strategy as an innovative health technology?”. A great amount of attention has been given to e‐health activity in the present day. However important this form of e‐health is, this type of service simply does not face the same constraints that must be addressed by those actually delivering health care services.

The researchers employed a qualitative data collection technique to formulate more examples and cases to derive lessons for Jordan. Phone interviews in a random sample were conducted with corporate officers in Jordan in order to reveal the internal organizational structure and business trends, interface issues, marketing strategies, as well as comparing and contrasting the online health world to the traditional health care realm.

Internet‐related projects is a top priority for health care information technology executives in the present day, with a cautious approach toward “e‐health”, as many products have yet to mature, and that the “click and mortar” model may perhaps be the optimal strategy for e‐health in Jordan.

This paper reviews the e‐health trends to demonstrate the tremendous potential for health‐related commercial activity on the internet. However, the researcher examining the barriers facing e‐health to the Jordanian health system also pointed out almost insurmountable challenges.

Despite the apparent promise of e‐health, its instability is measured by its failure so far to systematically penetrate the organization of health care. Beyond the pragmatic negotiation of e‐health in the immediate context of clinical practice, there are wider issues about how the development/implementation of e‐health is funded, about its organization and management at the policy level; and about its potential medico‐legal risks.

It is hoped that the handful of ventures into cyber medicine appears to be coming from a few enterprising physicians who have set up medical practices on the Web.

The search for online health‐related information has become increasingly popular. This study examines online health information quality (relevance and clarity) and the perceived value of online health information search (social, utilitarian and epistemic) and how they relate to consumers' satisfaction with their online health information search experience. The resulting intention to repeat a health information search over the internet is also included in a conceptual model to illustrate what drives the process.

Structural equation modeling was utilized to simultaneously assess the proposed relationships among the constructs. Data from 263 online respondents were used to test the measurement and structural model.

Results show that information relevance is strongly related to the utilitarian value consumers receive from information seeking, whereas information clarity is strongly related to epistemic value. Moreover, it is the utilitarian value of the information search that drives satisfaction with and intention to repeat online health information search.

Suggestions for web site designers in the healthcare industry and health care professionals are addressed. Web site designers should stress practical and functional features of web sites, while health care professionals should direct patients toward web sites that will provide users with the most utilitarian value. Although the study is limited by its online data collection, results provide an initial attempt to develop a conceptual model that explains what may be happening within the world of online health information search behavior. Future research should address the exclusion of potentially important variables including internet skill level and specific types of searches.

This study is unique in that it provides web site designers and health care professionals with clear insight into specific dimensions of online health information and value.

This paper aims to provide clear domain knowledge and recent progresses on electronic healthcare (e-healthcare).

In this paper, the authors use citation analysis to describe the trends of study on e-health with the help of CiteSpace II, a software for visualizing citation-based analysis. By analyzing the 2,752 publications and their citation data in ISI database, the authors proposed renewable figures and tables on ranking critical people, institutes, keywords and journals. Through the most influential articles given by CiteSpace, the authors can grasp the main direction in e-health researches. Furthermore, the authors analyzed the literature at e-health literacy as a case, to better understand the development of research viewpoints.

Through the analysis, the authors found that e-health is a multi-disciplinary research field and the major research about it has changed. During the early stage, health information quality on the Internet dominates. Gradually, the role of information technology (IT) becomes more important. The authors also found that some researchers, recently, have proposed the effects of IT on e-health literacy which can then improve the ability to use health information on the Internet.

This paper has some research limitations, such as using an ISI database with most English publications. The future research may be conducted for collecting local publications data in China. It also has some implications. Based on the results, the authors claimed that IT may significantly improve people’s healthcare variance, e.g. e-health literacy. It is necessary to build new IT-based healthcare theories.

This paper also has some practical implications. Practitioners and institute may easily come to know which are the hot topics, top institutes and tendencies in the e-healthcare field.

This paper may help practitioners to find common interests with other institutions and societies.

This paper reported the status and trend of research in this field visually, and the result will help researchers to do more in-depth research in the future.

This study was carried out to examine the volume and annual growth pattern of research on e-health literacy research, investigate the open-access types of e-health literacy research and perform document production by country and by sources. The study also mapped the keywords used by authors to represent e-health literacy research and performed an analysis of the clusters of the keywords to reveal the thematic focus of research in the area.

The research was guided by a bibliometric approach involving visualization using VosViewer. Data were sourced from Scopus database using a syntax that was tested and verified to be capable of yielding reliable data on the subject matter. The analysis in this study was based on bibliographic data and keywords.

A total number of 1,176 documents were produced during 2006 and 2022. The majority of the documents (18.90%) were published based on hybrid open-access processes, and the USA has the highest contributions. The Journal of Medical Internet Research is the venue for most of the documents on the subject. The 1,176 documents were described by 5,047 keywords, 4.29 keywords per document, and the keywords were classified into five clusters that aptly capture the thematic structure of research in the area.

e-Health literacy has experienced significant growth in research production from 2006 to 2022, with an average of 69 documents per year. Research on e-health literacy initially had low output but began to increase in 2018. The majority of e-health literacy documents are available through open access, with the USA being the leading contributor. The analysis of keywords reveals the multifaceted nature of e-health literacy, including access to information, attitudes, measurement tools, awareness, age factors and communication. Clusters of keywords highlight different aspects of e-health literacy research, such as accessibility, attitudes, awareness, measurement tools and the importance of age, cancer, caregivers and effective communication in healthcare.

This study has practical implications for health promotion. There is also the element of patient empowerment in which case patients are allowed to take an active role in their healthcare. By understanding their health information and having access to resources that help them manage their conditions, patients can make informed decisions about their healthcare. Finally, there is the issue of improved health outcomes which can be achieved by improving patients' e-health literacy. Visualisation of e-health literacy can help bridge the gap between patients and healthcare providers, promote patient-centered care and improve health outcomes.

Research production on e-Health literacy has experienced significant growth from 2006 to 2022, with an average of 69 documents per year. Many e-health literacy documents are available through open access, and the USA is the leading contributor. The analysis of keywords reveals the nature of e-health literacy, including access to information, attitudes, measurement tools, awareness and communication. The clusters of keywords highlight different aspects of e-health literacy research, such as accessibility, attitudes, awareness, measurement tools and the importance of age, cancer, caregivers, and effective communication in healthcare.