A Social Network Framework to Explore Healthcare Collaboration

Abstract

A patient centric approach to healthcare calls for increased collaboration among healthcare professionals who look after patients, both in and out of the hospital. As a result an informal social network emerges among healthcare professionals who collaborate while looking after patients. The nature of such a collaboration network whose purpose is to address a specific health problem raises some interesting questions. Using principles of social network theories (i.e. Bavelas' Centrality Theory (1950) and Freeman's centralization theory (1978)) and the social network model of exponential random graph model, this paper presents a research framework to explore and analyse the collaboration network that evolves among healthcare professionals during the course of treating patients. The proposed research framework: (i) identifies the type of collaboration structure among physicians that is effective and efficient for patients, in terms of outcome measures such as hospitalisation cost and length of stay; (ii) explores and identifies the effective structural attributes of a referral network that evolves during the course of providing care; and (iii) explores the impact of socio-demographic characteristics of healthcare professionals, patients and hospitals on collaboration structures from the point of view of measurable outcomes such as cost and quality of care.The framework presented in this paper uses illustrative examples of collaboration that evolves among physicians while treating hospital patients undergoing hip replacement surgery and subsequent rehabilitation process. This practical application of the proposed framework reveals structures of physicians' collaborations that are not favourable to cost and quality of care measure such as readmission rate. We believe that such a framework will enable healthcare managers and administrators to evaluate the collaborative work environment within their respective healthcare organisations.

Boosting advice and knowledge sharing among healthcare professionals

“…Many studies have focused on team collaboration by investigating the composition of teams using traditional social science methodologies. Others have focused on the role of individual attributes, such as personality types or behavioral patterns (Srinivasan and Uddin, 2017). For instance, Kilpatrick (2013) describes the impact of introducing the intermediary role of acute care nurse practitioner on decision-making and communication.…”

“…Our study contributes to the understanding of the factors facilitating knowledge sharing by adopting a social network perspective to map the connections developed among medical professionals (Ripley et al , 2020; Wasserman and Faust, 1994). Recently, an increasing number of studies in health care settings have been using social network analysis to identify information brokers who span team and organizational boundaries and identify networks’ fragmentation points (Griffiths et al , 2012; Srinivasan and Uddin, 2017). For example, a longitudinal email network analysis involving two chronic care teams at a US children’s hospital demonstrated how improving awareness of team communication and relying on information brokers can lead to increased density and inter-role connectedness (Grippa et al , 2011; Palazzolo et al , 2011).…”

Local Dynamics of Collaboration for Maternal, Newborn and Child Health: A Social Network Analysis of Healthcare Providers and Their Managers in Gert Sibande District, South Africa

“…3,4 The essence of collaborative networks resides in bringing 'disparate groups together so that they can work effectively and synergistically. ' 5 Collaborative relationships are enabled by or embedded in formal and informal social networks in the work setting 6,7 and can be affected by differences in professional power, level of expertise and professional and organizational culture. 8 A recent systematic review shows that quality improvement collaboratives among frontline providers and managers improve their knowledge, problem-solving skills and collaborative attitude, teamwork and shared leadership.…”