Healthcare Social Media: Expectations of Users in a Developing Country
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Abstract
Background
Affordability, acceptability, accommodation, availability and accessibility are the five most important dimensions of access to health services. Seventy three percent of Indian population lives in the semi-urban and rural areas. The strong mismatch of ratio of hospitals to patients, rising costs of health care, rapidly changing demographics, increasing population and heightened demands in pricing for technological healthcare usage in emerging economies necessitate a unique health delivery solution model using social media. The prominent gaps in the healthcare delivery among the population, which has greater disease burden, might be relaxed using social media tool. Based on research we framed the key questions of this paper as what are the expectations of consumers or users of healthcare social media. The authors have tried to find how these factors depend on social media for healthcare.
Objective
a. Which are the factors that affect the users of healthcare social media?
b. Finding which of the above determined factors affect the preferences of users of social media.
Method
The paper is based on the premise that the health customer is able to choose from where and whom they get treated or prefer some close relatives advices for taking such decisions. Factor analysis was conducted using the response on what factors the users of social media would like in a social site created especially for healthcare. Primary data was collected using a questionnaire tool designed on the online Google forms. The factors obtained i.e., privacy, immediacy and usability were used as the independent variables to predict the dependant variable called the social media and regression analysis was performed.
Results, and Conclusions.
Around 40 percent of the respondents belong to the semi-urban and rural area and do not prefer to search the Internet. Privacy and usability has strong effect on healthcare social media. The negative influence of immediacy shows that the users in developing countries are still little backward in the acceptance of such tools. There is a strong relation in preference to be in the contacts lists of interest groups. This suggests that people are willing to adopt and try the new ways in being healthy and aware.
The implication of usefulness of social media has been well understood through its usage in marketing and other dominant domains. The understanding of social media components for healthcare can make the world more connected and informed. This would become more important when we take the case of unconnected and rural areas of emerging economies like India and China. A social media inclusive of doctors, super specialty hubs, retail for health and community itself could largely improve the conditions of affordability, availability and accessibility for healthcare. The results let the designers of social media of health to keep in mind the weight-age of healthcare components. The results explain that people are willing to use the social media sites for health.
Affordability, acceptability, accommodation, availability and accessibility are the five most important dimensions of access to health services. Seventy three percent of Indian population lives in the semi-urban and rural areas. The strong mismatch of ratio of hospitals to patients, rising costs of health care, rapidly changing demographics, increasing population and heightened demands in pricing for technological healthcare usage in emerging economies necessitate a unique health delivery solution model using social media. The prominent gaps in the healthcare delivery among the population, which has greater disease burden, might be relaxed using social media tool. Based on research we framed the key questions of this paper as what are the expectations of consumers or users of healthcare social media. The authors have tried to find how these factors depend on social media for healthcare.
Objective
a. Which are the factors that affect the users of healthcare social media?
b. Finding which of the above determined factors affect the preferences of users of social media.
Method
The paper is based on the premise that the health customer is able to choose from where and whom they get treated or prefer some close relatives advices for taking such decisions. Factor analysis was conducted using the response on what factors the users of social media would like in a social site created especially for healthcare. Primary data was collected using a questionnaire tool designed on the online Google forms. The factors obtained i.e., privacy, immediacy and usability were used as the independent variables to predict the dependant variable called the social media and regression analysis was performed.
Results, and Conclusions.
Around 40 percent of the respondents belong to the semi-urban and rural area and do not prefer to search the Internet. Privacy and usability has strong effect on healthcare social media. The negative influence of immediacy shows that the users in developing countries are still little backward in the acceptance of such tools. There is a strong relation in preference to be in the contacts lists of interest groups. This suggests that people are willing to adopt and try the new ways in being healthy and aware.
The implication of usefulness of social media has been well understood through its usage in marketing and other dominant domains. The understanding of social media components for healthcare can make the world more connected and informed. This would become more important when we take the case of unconnected and rural areas of emerging economies like India and China. A social media inclusive of doctors, super specialty hubs, retail for health and community itself could largely improve the conditions of affordability, availability and accessibility for healthcare. The results let the designers of social media of health to keep in mind the weight-age of healthcare components. The results explain that people are willing to use the social media sites for health.
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