Initial Communication Media, Sustained Patient Engagement, and Health Outcomes: Evidence from an Online Mental Healthcare Platform

77 Pages Posted: 10 May 2023 Last revised: 14 Oct 2024

See all articles by Weiwei Sun

Weiwei Sun

Harbin Institute of Technology; City University of Hong Kong (CityU)

Aaron Cheng

London School of Economics - Department of Management

Xitong Guo

Harbin Institute of Technology

Date Written: October 12, 2024

Abstract

Online mental healthcare platforms have thrived during the COVID-19 pandemic, yet the choice of media in physician-patient interactions presents a conundrum for stakeholders. Communication media, a key element of service design, can influence patient revisits, which are essential for managing chronic diseases. However, understanding of their impacts remains limited in research and practice. Using data from a leading online mental healthcare platform in China, we assess the relative impacts of synchronous (audio, video) versus asynchronous (text) media on patient revisits and health outcomes. Our findings reveal a significant increase in patient revisits following initial services conducted via synchronous media, an observation consistent across various empirical methods, including matching and regression discontinuity design. More importantly, synchronous media are associated with improved health conditions in both the short and long term. Our mechanism analysis suggests the indispensable role of cue multiplicity (over feedback immediacy) featured in synchronous media, which likely explains these positive effects. We also explore effect heterogeneity across patient attributes, finding that synchronous media benefit most mental health conditions, except schizophrenia. Furthermore, the positive sync-media effects are more pronounced for patients at higher risk of health deterioration, as predicted and ranked through machine learning techniques. These findings advance our understanding of communication media in telehealth engagement and inform the design of sustainable online platforms for healthcare stakeholders.

Note:
Funding Information: None

Conflict of Interests: None

Ethical Approval: This study was approved by the Research Ethics Committee at the School of Management, Harbin Institute of Technology.

Keywords: Digital Platform, Online Healthcare Service, Patient Revisit, Communication Media, Mental Health, Regression Discontinuity Design, Machine Learning

JEL Classification: D83, I12, L86, M15

Suggested Citation

Sun, Weiwei and Cheng, Zhi (Aaron) and Guo, Xitong, Initial Communication Media, Sustained Patient Engagement, and Health Outcomes: Evidence from an Online Mental Healthcare Platform (October 12, 2024). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=4394719 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.4394719

Weiwei Sun

Harbin Institute of Technology ( email )

92 Xidazhi Street
Harbin, 150001
China

City University of Hong Kong (CityU) ( email )

City University of Hong Kong
Tat Chee Avenue
Kowloon, Kowloon
Hong Kong

Zhi (Aaron) Cheng (Contact Author)

London School of Economics - Department of Management ( email )

Houghton Street
London, WC2A 2AE
United Kingdom

Xitong Guo

Harbin Institute of Technology ( email )

huanghe road
harbin, heilongjiang 150001
China

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