Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
Chapter 8
Enabling Consumer-Driven Service Innovation
in Health Care: The Role of Online Health
Information Technologies (HIT)
Priya Nambisan
Abstract In the past few years, consumer participation in health care has increased
significantly with the ready availability of medical information on health websites
and the ability to interact in disease-focused online health communities. Importantly,
such consumer participation also involves creating new knowledge based on con-
sumers' direct experiences with particular diseases and treatments - new knowledge
that could lead to new or improved services. Such consumer-driven service inno-
vation has assumed critical importance as most healthcare organizations come
under considerable pressure to enhance the value they offer to their consumers (or
patients). In this chapter, we argue that an important task for value-driven health-
care organizations is to facilitate consumer driven service innovation in health care
through appropriate use of online health information technologies. We adopt a
knowledge creation perspective and propose a theoretical framework that explains
how health websites and online health communities together can facilitate creation
of innovative service ideas through knowledge socialization, combination, external-
ization, and internalization. Implications for future research on the role of IT in
service innovation in health care are discussed. The implications for strategies and
practices adopted by healthcare organizations are also examined.
Keywords Consumer participation
·
Service innovation
·
Health care
·
Knowledge
creation
8.1 Introduction
Consumer participation in health care - self-care - has increased significantly in
the past few years or so with the ready availability of medical information on
the Internet. In addition, consumers' ability to connect with people with the same
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