An empirical validation of the patient-centered e-health framework in patientfocused websites

Abstract

Although the Internet is in its second decade of wide-spread adoption, many patient-centered health websites are still in a phase of early adoption, scrambling to def ine and defend market segments in a shif ting healthcare information landscape. Consequently, healthcare and health information providers are jockeying for position in a dynamic industry trying to serve dif f erent patients' needs. To understand the situation, this article takes the approach of Patient-centered e-Health (PCEH) and makes three contributions. One, we empirically test the PCEH framework on patient-focused websites. Two, given the PCEH framew ork, we identify five categor ies of websites that serve dif ferent segments of the patient-centered health information market. Three, we analyze the five categories in terms of dif ferent features and derive a classif ication model. This article helps us better understand PCEH websites and guide the future development of online healthcare and health information services. © 2014 by the Association for Information Systems.