Online Medical Reviews on Patient Behavior Mining and Its Applications in Medical Decision-Making and Management

Purpose/Significance In the era of Internet big data, online reviews, as an important information resource, have been applied to the purchase decisions of various commodities and services. With the introduction of the “Internet and Medical Health” policy, the Internet medical market increased gradually. The development of the Internet-based healthcare plays an important role in meeting the diverse needs of patients, balancing the allocation of medical resources, improving the relationships between doctors and patients, responding to public health emergencies, and improving the healthcare system. Within this context, how to mining the potential value of online reviews in assisting medical service management such as optimizing patient choice behaviors has attracted the attention of many scholars and achieved many results. Design/Methodology After the bibliometrics analysis on related literature, this paper reviews the generating behaviors and patient perceptions of online medical reviews, the subject characteristics and relevant factors of online medical reviews, and the applications of online reviews in assisting medical service decision making. Finally, on the basis of the situation of Chinese internet-driven healthcare, this paper provides future research directions regarding the theoretical methodologies and applications of online reviews on medical service management. Conclusions/Findings The current frontiers of online medical reviews mainly focus on the impact of ratings, the relevance of topic features and reviews of online medical reviews on patients’ decision-making behaviors. Existing studies are insufficient in terms of comment generation and patient perception. In the future, based on China’s national conditions, it is necessary to conduct in-depth researches on the role of online medical reviews in decision-making and management of Internet medical services.