An electronic service quality transactional model of attraction, trust and loyalty for interactive healthcare portal

Abstract

Interactive Health Portals (IHPs) are portals of healthcare providers which offer e-services for patients to assist them in obtaining required health information, communicate easily and access all services offered. The quality of e-services provided by the IHP is a critical concern since it serves as a gateway to patients to interact with a respective healthcare provider. IHPs are well developed in US and Europe, but developing countries such as Malaysia are still lagging behind this trend. IHPs are very important for private hospitals whose aim include servicing patients from other countries. Previous studies have investigated how to attract patients, to increase their trust and to make them loyal to IHPs within developing countries, however they were studied in a segregate manner. The relationship among them have yet been explored in the context of healthcare and as a transaction model for patients’ loyalty on IHP is not studied yet. The aim of this study is to identify the e-service quality (e-SQ) factors that may influence attraction, trust and loyalty on IHP and thus propose an e-SQ transactional model of attraction, trust and loyalty for IHP. A survey method was employed to examine the influence of the identified e-SQ factors on three components of attraction, trust and loyalty in the proposed model. Questionnaires were distributed targeting patients at three private hospitals who had experience in using e-services in which two hundred and three patients responded to the survey. Collected data were analysed using the Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modelling (PLS-SEM) technique. The results showed that e-SQ factors of usability, information quality, virtual training, IHP services, and cost savings positively influenced patients’ attraction. Trust of patients was positively influenced by security, privacy, reliability, and policy of IHPs. Finally, the e-SQ factors of compensation, responsiveness and hospitality affected patient loyalty in a positive manner. The Importance-Performance Matrix Analysis indicated that the top priority to be addressed to attract patients are IHP services and cost saving. Next, attraction, reliability and privacy are the most important factors to gain patients’ trust, while hospitality and trust are most significant to make patients loyal. The e-SQ transactional model as an outcome of this study is hoped to assist Malaysian IHP providers to better understand patients’ demands and allow them to design more patient-centric portals. This study is especially beneficial to private hospitals which receive no governmental financial aids and are in close competition with other private hospitals.