Telemedicine the role of the patient-doctor relationship

The aim of this work is to study whether and how the characteristics of the existing relationship between a patient and her/his doctor impact the patient’s propensity to switch to telemedicine. We build a conceptual model which hypothesizes a direct effect of the patient-doctor relationship on the propensity to telemedicine, with the perceived efficacy of the healthcare service as the mediator. To collect data, we used the survey methodology. The results confirm the hypothesis about the positive effects of both a good patient-doctor relationship and the patients’ perceived value on the patients’ propensity to switch to telemedicine.