Abstract:
Despite recent technological advancements, the slow adoption pattern of digital healthcare promotion
programs continues to be a major problem plaguing many healthcare organizations today. The historical
teaching case study is indispensable in improving our understanding of the complex and multifaceted
nature of contemporary digital healthcare promotion programs. This historical teaching case presents
information about e-health, the e-commerce unit of a large multinational healthcare insurance company.
The teaching case shows how despite e-health’s ability to persuade a large registered base of users to
trial its healthcare promotion programs, over 90% of these registrants discontinued use after a short
trial period of using the technology. This historical teaching case focuses on the social challenges
involved in persuading users to adopt and continue using e-health’s major healthcare promotion
innovation: an online nutrition center. Despite extensive promotions and the use of incentives, less
than 10% of the user base adopted and continued to use this healthcare promotion innovation. The case
reports on the discontinuance among digital healthcare promotion users despite the intensive efforts
to retain them. Students and practitioners will gain insight into the key social challenges involved
in achieving a critical mass of users for digital healthcare promotion innovations. The teaching case
requires important decisions to be made by students and practitioners about present digital healthcare
promotion programs by drawing on inferences from past digital healthcare promotion programs.
Finally, this historical teaching case study makes a convincing case for the value of historical insights
in informing present day challenges facing contemporary digital healthcare promotion programs.
