Research

Institutional and Provider Networks

We are developing new projects that examine how health care institutions and providers are inter-connected, and how such patterns of inter-connection affect the diffusion of innovation, the flow of patients through health care systems, and the quality of health care. For example, we are interested in the determinants of referrals among physicians and how these informal networks arising from referral-making might affect the delivery of health care or the quality of that care. This work involves the assembly of large-scale, longitudinally resolved, bipartite networks of hospitals and doctors, or of doctors and patients.

The team of faculty investigators working on this topic include: Bruce Landon, Nancy Keating, James O'Malley, Alan Zaslavksy, and Peter Marsden.

© 2008 Nicholas Christakis