What drives patient’s continuous use of online team consultation services? A teamwork quality model using the stimulus-organism-response framework

Abstract

Online team consultations (OTCs) enhance existing online healthcare services by providing more comprehensive care compared to consultations with a single physician. However, poor teamwork quality, such as a lack of coordination and uneven contributions, can result in patients discontinuing the use of online medical team (OMT) service. This not only disrupts the development of long-term patient relationships but also diminishes the overall benefits of collaborative care. Therefore, the aim of this study is to explore how the quality of teamwork, specifically coordination and balance of contributions, within OMTs influences patients’ willingness to continue using team-based consultation services, while also investigating the moderating role of teamwork experience through the Stimulus-Organism-Response (S-O-R) framework. Our research model was validated using public data collected from a leading online health platform in China. We find that coordination and balance of contributions positively and significantly impact patient satisfaction, which subsequently leads to continuous use. Teamwork experience strengthens the effect of the balance of contributions on satisfaction, but has an insignificant influence on the link between coordination and satisfaction. This study deepens the understanding of how patients perceive OMT teamwork quality and their decision-making process about continued OTC service use.