Mitigating patients' negative responses to health care asset sharing through explanatory information provision.

Abstract

Background: Sharing health care assets promises to enhance asset utilization, increase efficiency, and reduce costs, but this tactic also might risk adverse patient outcomes. Identifying potential mitigation strategies thus represents a pressing research need.

Purposes: This study investigates the effects of sharing a health care asset on patients' perceptions, as well as how providing explanatory information might mitigate the negative effects of such sharing on patient outcomes.

Methodology/approach: Building on signaling theory and data gathered from a scenario-based experiment (n = 303 German participants), the authors perform regression analyses, in which trust in the physician and perceived risk represent mediators of the relationship between sharing a health care asset and patients' intentions to return. They also explore if physicians' explanatory information provision functions as a moderator.

Findings: Trust in the physician and perceived risk serially mediate the effect of sharing a health care asset on patients' intentions to return. Explanatory information provision can mitigate the negative effects of asset sharing on patients' trust in the physician.

Practice implications: Explanatory information provision is crucial for implementing shared asset use strategies in the health care sector, because it offers the potential to mitigate the negative effects of such uses on patient outcomes. Health care providers pursuing shared asset strategies should provide patients with clear information about the shared asset, to prevent adverse effects.