Purpose

The authors explore the outcomes of health-care professionals' participation in a vendor-hosted online community by combining qualitative and quantitative data collected in two separate studies. The authors aim to shed light on the potential value outcomes of community participation covering the reduction of service costs by professionals' community participation.

Design/methodology/approach

The authors explore the outcomes of health-care professionals' participation in a vendor-hosted online community by combining qualitative and quantitative data collected in two separate studies. The authors also introduce GABEK® as a unique method of qualitative empirical content analysis. In the quantitative study, the authors refer to customer survey data and transactional data.

Findings

The results show that participation in online communities by professionals emerges as a dual concept, consisting of both help-seeking and help-providing behaviors. These behaviors in turn facilitate the creation of economic and relational value, as well as influencing the perceived usefulness of the online community, resulting in higher satisfaction with the community among the participating professionals. Customer survey data and transactional data were gathered from a major medical equipment vendor hosting an online community, and those data confirm that participation also decreases service support costs to professionals by reducing the number of necessary service visits by the vendor's service technicians.

Practical implications

The resulting model of participation and corresponding benefits in an online community for health-care professionals reflects and informs current developments in the health care industry.

Originality/value

The combination of qualitative as well as quantitative studies relying on the data of a world leading medical equipment vendor hosting an online community provides unique and innovative insights into participation and value creation within B2B communities.

中文翻译：

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医疗保健的价值创造和成本降低——医疗保健专业人员在线参与的结果

目的

作者通过结合在两项独立研究中收集的定性和定量数据来探索医疗保健专业人员参与供应商托管的在线社区的结果。作者旨在阐明社区参与的潜在价值成果，包括通过专业人士的社区参与降低服务成本。

设计/方法/方法

作者通过结合在两项独立研究中收集的定性和定量数据来探索医疗保健专业人员参与供应商托管的在线社区的结果。作者还介绍了 GABEK® 作为一种独特的定性经验内容分析方法。在定量研究中，作者参考了客户调查数据和交易数据。

发现

结果表明，专业人士参与在线社区是一个双重概念，包括寻求帮助和提供帮助的行为。这些行为反过来促进了经济和关系价值的创造，并影响了在线社区的感知有用性，从而提高了参与专业人士对社区的满意度。客户调查数据和交易数据是从托管在线社区的主要医疗设备供应商处收集的，这些数据证实，参与还可以通过减少供应商服务技术人员的必要服务访问次数来降低专业人员的服务支持成本。

实际影响

由此产生的医疗保健专业人员在线社区的参与模式和相应的利益反映并为医疗保健行业的当前发展提供信息。

原创性/价值

依赖于托管在线社区的世界领先医疗设备供应商的数据的定性和定量研究相结合，为 B2B 社区内的参与和价值创造提供了独特和创新的见解。