Social structure of patient-centric networks and delivery of cost effective healthcare services

Abstract

Improving operations and delivery of cost effective healthcare services would be an important area of investigation due to the challenges in allocation of resources in meeting the increasing cost of healthcare for the 21st century. To date, appropriate mechanisms for systematic evaluation of hospital operations and its impact of the delivery of cost effective healthcare services is lacking. This is perhaps the first study, which focuses on using large insurance claims data to develop a social network based model for exploring the effect of patient doctor tie strength and patient socio demographic factors for exploring the social structure of operations and delivery of cost effective healthcare services. We suggest that delivery of cost effective healthcare services and operation is embedded within the social structure of hospitals. By exploring the mode of hospital operations in terms of their patient centric care network, we are able to develop a better understanding of the operation and delivery of cost effective healthcare services.