Leila El Kamel*, Teluq, Montreal, Canada Track: Research Presentation Topic: Consumer empowerment, patient-physician relationship, and sociotechnical issues Presentation Type: Rapid-Fire Presentation Submission Type: Single Presentation Building: Sheraton Maui Resort Room: B - Kapalua Date: 2014-11-14 09:00 AM – 09:40 AM Last modified: 2014-10-21

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Background: The study of the accessibility to medical information by patients via new information technology has generated a set of research focused on the patient’s empowerment or sovereignty. These researches dealt with questions about the ability that the patient has to manage his illness through the information now available via medical websites, social media platforms, forums and online communities. Emphasis was set on the study this gain control over the physician-patient relationship. There has been the introduction of an e-health innovation: connected objects. Connected health devices brought connectivity, which is a new aspect in addition to accessibility. Mobile applications associated to these objects allow patients to access to real-time monitoring of their health status that are also simultaneously available to the healthcare professionals. Today, connected health devices potentially reduce in-site visits allowing real-time monitoring of patient’s status and effective management of health data. Nowadays remarkable implementation of theses devices begin to intrigue researchers, users and professionals.

Objective: The purpose of this paper is to explore and highlight the consequences of the use of these connected devices on the healthcare interaction experience between patients and professionals. (For this purpose, the healthcare experience is apprehended based on co-creation of value in collaborative marketing theory. This is the first step of a larger study whose results will enrich further reflection on the use of these devices, as their adoption will be proven and expanded.

Methods: An exploratory qualitative research was conducted in two steps: (1) a netnography was conducted in three forums enriched by users and health professionals. The selection of forums and were based on the relevance of topics related to the purpose of the study and the flow of messages they contain. Data collection occurred over a period from 2011 and 2013. (2) Content analysis of “discourse” used to present and to promote five health connected devices to use in case of illness or chronic condition requiring interaction between patients and healthcare professionals.

Results: First, data analysis allows detecting seven categories of expectations expressed by patients and professionals about e-health in general: access to information, empowerment, monitoring, spatio-temporal transcendence, interconnectivity, knowledge emergence and activism. Second, content analysis of the five health connected devices has revealed seven common key attributes including: autonomy, connectivity, alert, mobility, interoperability, support and confidentiality. Finally a comparative analysis of the collected data was conducted in order to explore the match between the expectations of patients and professionals as expressed in the forums and the promises of the analysed connected objects. The analysis of these exploratory data reveals presence of a potential new triadic model of co-creation of the healthcare experience in which involved parties are: the patient, the healthcare professional and the connected object.

Conclusions: Although exploratory, this work laid the foundations for a more elaborated study whose purpose will aim to verify the validity of the triadic model of co-creation of the healthcare experience and propose a strategy for collaborative marketing applied to healthcare connected objects.