healthcare Article Different Roles of Telehealth and Telemedicine on Medical Tourism: An Empirical Study from Azerbaijan Dongxiao Gu 1,2 , Gunay Humbatova 1 , Yi Xie 1 , Xuejie Yang 1, * , Oleg Zolotarev 3 and Gongrang Zhang 1   Citation: Gu, D.; Humbatova, G.; Xie, Y.; Yang, X.; Zolotarev, O.; Zhang, G. Different Roles of Telehealth and Telemedicine on Medical Tourism: An Empirical Study from Azerbaijan. Healthcare 2021, 9, 1073. https:// doi.org/10.3390/healthcare9081073 Academic Editor: Daniele Giansanti Received: 16 July 2021 Accepted: 18 August 2021 Published: 20 August 2021 Publisher’s Note: MDPI stays neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affil- iations. Copyright: © 2021 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by/ 4.0/). 1 The School of Management, Hefei University of Technology, Hefei 230009, China; mikehfut@gmail.com (D.G.); gunayhumbetova1@gmail.com (G.H.); yixie928@163.com (Y.X.); wangzhaojun97@126.com (G.Z.) 2 Key Laboratory of Process Optimization and Intelligent Decision-Making of Ministry of Education, Hefei 230009, China 3 The Department of Information Systems in Economics and Management, Russian New University, 105005 Moscow, Russia; ol-zolot@yandex.ru * Correspondence: xuejie_y@126.com; Tel.: +86-173-4409-7960 Abstract: With the rapid progress in mobile healthcare and Internet medicine, the impact of telehealth and telemedicine on the satisfaction of patients and their willingness to travel has become a focus of the academic research community. This study analyses the differences between telehealth and telemedicine and their role in medical tourism. We examine how the information quality and communication quality of telehealth and telemedicine influence patient satisfaction, and their effects on patients’ willingness to undertake medical travel and on their medical travel behaviours. We conducted an empirical study on the use of telehealth and telemedicine and on medical travel behaviour in Azerbaijan using a survey for data collection. A total of 500 results were collected and analysed using SmartPLS 3.0. Results show that (1) the communication quality and information quality of telehealth and telemedicine and their effects on satisfaction have significantly positive influences on willingness to undertake medical travel; (2) the psychological expectations of value and cost (perceived value and perceived cost) have a positive influence on medical travel; and (3) willingness to participate in medical travel positively influences medical travel behaviour. Moreover, results of this study have implications for research on, and the practice of, using telehealth and telemedicine as they relate to medical tourism. This research may help improve knowledge about telehealth and telemedicine and understand the differences between them in detail. This empirical research model may also be useful for researchers from other countries who wish to measure medical travel behaviour. Keywords: medical tourism; user satisfaction; healthcare telecommunication system; internet health- care services; medical travel intentions 1. Introduction Compared with the long waiting lists, high treatment costs and lack of travel oppor- tunities associated with medical care at home, the idea of accessing healthcare in another country is more appealing to many people [1]. Medical tourism, where patients travel abroad for treatment, has developed rapidly in recent years. High levels of technology and medical capabilities in the target countries, transportation costs within a budget and positive web marketing play a large role in this development [2]. Medical tourism is a growing dimension of healthcare globalisation, whereby people elect to travel across borders or to overseas countries to receive their treatment [3]. Nowadays, with regard to the development of the Internet and communication tech- nologies, people can easily buy products from all over the world using only Internet network devices and their credit card. The fact that the medical industry now has such opportunities is one of the biggest contributions of science and technology to human life. People can find a senior doctor from anywhere in the world without leaving their homes and have the opportunity to contact them and receive treatment remotely [4]. Healthcare 2021, 9, 1073. https://doi.org/10.3390/healthcare9081073 https://www.mdpi.com/journal/healthcare