Table 2 Measurement and description of variables
Variables | Description | Measure |
|---|---|---|
Patients’ purchasing behavior | Physicians sell the number of health-care services on haodf.com | Using the original data |
Status | Position of the physician in the offline hospital | Dummy variables were used for the metric. Status was categorized into 5 levels, with chief physicians as level 5, associate chief physicians as level 4, attending physicians as level 3, residents as level 2, and other physicians as level 1 |
Reputations | The reputation of a physician is measured using a combination of 3 metrics: the number of patient votes, thank you letters and gifts. The haodf.com allows patients to vote, write thank you letters and give gifts to physicians. When a patient feels good about physician’s services, he can vote for him, or write a thank you letter, or give gifts to the physician, such as flowers and banners and other virtual items. The more votes, thank you letters and gifts a physician gets, the better the physician's reputation is | Since the three indicators of votes, thank you notes, and gifts have large ranges of values, they were each standardized and then averaged to measure the reputation of the physicians |
Longevity | The time that physicians register personal homepage for online medical services | The number of years between the time the physician’s home page was created and the time the data were collected |
Appointment Registration | If the physician opens an online registration function on the website, then the patient can reserve an offline appointment with the physician through the online health consultation platform, saving the patient's time in the offline queue for registration | Dummy variables are used for the metric. A "1" is assigned to a physician who is open for appointment registration, and a "0" to a physician who is not |
Service quality | Once a patient purchases a medical service on the website, they can consult with the physician on the website and the patient's questions will be answered by the physician on the platform | Number of answers by physicians responding to patient questions online |
Welcome message | Physicians open a personal page on the platform, where they can set a prominent place at the top of their personal page to introduce their information as well as their expertise, etc. and express their wish for patients to purchase their medical services | Dummy variables were used for the metric. A welcome message of "1" is set for the physician's personal page and "0" is set for no welcome message |
Service price | Purchase price of online text consulting service for physicians | Using the original data |
Article | Number of articles published by physicians on the website | Using the original data |
Mutual-help group | An online health consultation community is a collection of virtual discussion groups in which members can share their feelings, knowledge and experiences about health topics of interest to them [47]. Physicians divide patients who have purchased their medical services into groups on the platform and place patients with similar illnesses within the same group to facilitate communication between patients | Using the original data |