The future of two-sided e-health markets

The two-sided e-health market is rapidly becoming fundamental for health and social care. Worldwide many different steps have been taken to increase the engagement of consumers with e-health, mainly focusing in the development of novel digital services that increase well-being or tackle some social challenges, such as the lack of qualified personnel, or dwindling resources. At the same time, some effort is also spent on establishing a market in which both sides-e-health consumers and providers-can interact and benefit from with each other (Connell and Young, 2007). In this sideline, there has been a great ambition to introduce "service innovation," "design thinking," and other tenors of the service-dominant logic (Vargo and Lusch, 2008) to open up for new collaborations between private and public actors. Intermediary platforms, provided by regional or national authorities (Aanestad and Jensen, 2011) or private actors such as insurance companies (Scott et al., 2006), become a key coordination infrastructure that allows information to flow within and between the two sides of the market, regulating nontransaction activities and making decisions that determine which group receives support and in which manner, and which kind of price structure will exist to stimulate the two sides to become an active actor of the market.