When Digitalization Doesn’t Help: Behavioral and Organizational Barriers to Patient-Facing Technology in Hospitals
Prof. Siliang (Jack) TONG
Assistant Professor, Division of Information Technology and Operations Management, Nanyang Technological University
Date: 3 March 2026 (Tuesday)
Time: 10:30-12:00
Venue: E22-G008
Host: Prof. Jacky Yan LIN, Assistant Professor in Business Intelligence and Analytics
Abstract
Hospitals worldwide are increasingly adopting patient-facing digital technologies to improve operational efficiency and patient experience. Yet, rigorous causal evidence on their real-world effectiveness remains limited. We conducted a large-scale randomized field experiment with a major public hospital system in China to evaluate a digital navigation system designed to guide patients through complex outpatient workflows. Over a three-month period, the system was deployed to nearly one million patients, spanning 1.7 million outpatient visits. Contrary to expectations, we find no significant reduction in total visit duration. Further analyses reveal that these null effects are driven by two factors: extremely low patient adoption (3.2%) of the digital navigation system and the system’s inability to address core operational bottlenecks, such as limited physician capacity and rigid scheduling, as reflected by unchanged stage-to-stage time intervals within the outpatient process. These findings underscore how behavioral frictions and institutional constraints can undermine the intended benefit of patient-facing digital technologies, highlighting the need for integrated design strategies that align AI technologies with patient behavior, clinical workflows, and organizational processes.
Speaker
Dr. Siliang (Jack) Tong is an Assistant Professor in the Division of Information Technology and Operations Management at Nanyang Business School, and an Assistant Professor at Lee Kong Chian School of Medicine (by courtesy), Nanyang Technological University, where he joined in February 2021. He received his Ph.D. in Marketing from the Fox School of Business, Temple University, in 2020, and an MBA from the University of Wisconsin–Madison in 2016. Dr. Tong is an empirical modeler who is interested in the substantive areas of artificial intelligence, mobile app marketing, and sharing economy. He is very active in research as his works were awarded as the best paper and finalist in multiple occasions such as PACIS, AMA conference and ISMS Marketing Science conference. His research is published in Marketing Science, Journal of Marketing, Production and Operations Management, Strategic Management Journal, the Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, and Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Nexus. Recently, Dr. Tong received the Nanyang Research Award (Young Investigator), the university’s highest research honor for faculty under the age of 40. Before entering academia, he spent six years in digital marketing and web analytics management roles.
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