https://macropaperwarehouse.com/authors/amanda-dahlstrand/Amanda DahlstrandHugo -- gohugo.ioen-ushttps://macropaperwarehouse.com/papers/defying-distance-the-provision-of-medical-services-in-the-digital-age/https://macropaperwarehouse.com/papers/defying-distance-the-provision-of-medical-services-in-the-digital-age/<p>This paper asks whether digital platforms can improve healthcare outcomes by enabling needs-based matching between patients and physicians unconstrained by geography. Amanda Dahlstrand studies digital primary care in Sweden during 2016-2018, exploiting nationwide conditional random assignment between approximately 200,000 patients and 143 doctors employed by Europe&rsquo;s largest digital primary care provider. Patients who selected the &ldquo;first available doctor&rdquo; option (82% of first visits) were effectively randomized to a doctor within each 3-hour shift-by-date stratum, generating quasi-experimental variation free of the patient-doctor sorting that confounds identification in physical primary care.</p>