Title: Empowering customers in electronic health (e-health) through social customer relationship management

Authors: Mohammad Nabil Almunawar; Muhammad Anshari

Addresses: School of Business and Economics, Universiti Brunei Darussalam, Jalan Tungku Link, BE1410, Brunei Darussalam ' School of Business and Economics, Universiti Brunei Darussalam, Jalan Tungku Link, BE1410, Brunei Darussalam

Abstract: Empowerment in e-health context relates to the ability of patients to have more access towards their health information, services and medical information through information communication & technology. Empowerment allows customers or patients to participate actively in healthcare business processes and decision-making. This paper discusses and proposes customers' empowerment in e-health through social Customer Relationship Management (CRM). We developed a model that addresses three types of empowerment: personal, medical and social. Based on the model, we developed a prototype of social CRM, namely Clinic 2.0 to measure the level of customer satisfaction before and after the proposed interaction. The testing resulted in a rapid increase in satisfaction, indicating that participants appreciate empowerment in e-health services.

Keywords: social CRM; e-health; customer empowerment; Web 2.0; Clinic 2.0; electronic healthcare; customer relationship management; personal empowerment; medical empowerment; social empowerment; customer satisfaction.

DOI: 10.1504/IJECRM.2014.066887

International Journal of Electronic Customer Relationship Management, 2014 Vol.8 No.1/2/3, pp.87 - 100

Received: 30 Jun 2014
Accepted: 02 Nov 2014
Published online: 29 Apr 2015 *

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