No Negative Reviews? Contextualizing Patients’ Excessively Positive Evaluations of Online Medical Platforms in China

• In Event: AI, Novel Technologies, and Health Equity

Abstract

Over the past decade, online medical platforms (OMPs) have surged in popularity, heralded as cutting-edge solutions to enduring socio-medical issues. Past studies tend to emphasize either how digital technologies empower patients or fail to do so. This article transcends this dichotomy, arguing that the efficacy of technology is always contingent upon the existing medical infrastructures and local contexts. Focusing on OMP developments in China, it examines how patients use and evaluate OMPs, and considers structural factors that shape their seemingly personal evaluations. To explore these questions, a mixed-method approach is adopted, consisting of (1) 60 interviews with various stakeholders, (2) 36 hours of ethnographic observations, and (3) statistical and computational text analysis of 2,068 patient reviews and 2,583 doctor profiles. Findings reveal an overwhelmingly high patient satisfaction rate. Crucially, this satisfaction stems from OMPs’ role as complements to, rather than substitutes for, traditional care. Because their use has not yet been fully institutionalized, patients harbor no standardized expectations; they strategically leverage platforms to accommodate their specific needs or conditions, which can be summarized as contextualized utilization. This term conceptualizes the intricate interplay among human, technology, and social surroundings and offers a framework for understanding user-technology interactions across diverse innovations, including AI.

Author

• Yingzhe Zhu, Northwestern University