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

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.