METHOD FOR USING PHYSICIAN SOCIAL NETWORKS TO PREDICT COST AND INTENSITY OF CARE IN HOSPITALS

摘要

Health care costs can be predicted for a particular hospital relative to other hospitals by examining physician-physician network structural measures within the hospitals. The physician-physician networks are ascertained by examining patient sharing data between physicians and the network structural measures include the median adjusted degree of all physicians in the hospitals, and the relative centrality of primary care physicians in the hospitals. For any particular hospital, the median adjusted degree and the primary care physician relative centrality of can be compared to the median adjusted degree and median primary care physician relative centrality over all the hospitals to determine whether the health care costs for the particular hospital will be higher or lower than the other hospitals.