Link to the University of Pittsburgh Homepage
Link to the University Library System Homepage Link to the Contact Us Form

Long-Term care facilities: Important participants of the acute care facility social network?

Lee, BY and Song, Y and Bartsch, SM and Kim, DS and Singh, A and Avery, TR and Brown, ST and Yilmaz, SL and Wong, KF and Potter, MA and Burke, DS and Platt, R and Huang, SS (2011) Long-Term care facilities: Important participants of the acute care facility social network? PLoS ONE, 6 (12).

[img]
Preview
PDF
Published Version
Available under License : See the attached license file.

Download (878kB) | Preview
[img] Plain Text (licence)
Available under License : See the attached license file.

Download (1kB)

Abstract

Background: Acute care facilities are connected via patient sharing, forming a network. However, patient sharing extends beyond this immediate network to include sharing with long-term care facilities. The extent of long-term care facility patient sharing on the acute care facility network is unknown. The objective of this study was to characterize and determine the extent and pattern of patient transfers to, from, and between long-term care facilities on the network of acute care facilities in a large metropolitan county. Methods/Principal Findings: We applied social network constructs principles, measures, and frameworks to all 2007 annual adult and pediatric patient transfers among the healthcare facilities in Orange County, California, using data from surveys and several datasets. We evaluated general network and centrality measures as well as individual ego measures and further constructed sociograms. Our results show that over the course of a year, 66 of 72 long-term care facilities directly sent and 67 directly received patients from other long-term care facilities. Long-term care facilities added 1,524 ties between the acute care facilities when ties represented at least one patient transfer. Geodesic distance did not closely correlate with the geographic distance among facilities. Conclusions/Significance: This study demonstrates the extent to which long-term care facilities are connected to the acute care facility patient sharing network. Many long-term care facilities were connected by patient transfers and further added many connections to the acute care facility network. This suggests that policy-makers and health officials should account for patient sharing with and among long-term care facilities as well as those among acute care facilities when evaluating policies and interventions. © 2011 Lee et al.


Share

Citation/Export:
Social Networking:
Share |

Details

Item Type: Article
Status: Published
Creators/Authors:
CreatorsEmailPitt UsernameORCID
Lee, BYbyl1@pitt.eduBYL1
Song, Y
Bartsch, SM
Kim, DS
Singh, A
Avery, TR
Brown, ST
Yilmaz, SL
Wong, KFkimwong@pitt.eduKIMWONG
Potter, MAMAPOTTER@pitt.eduMAPOTTER
Burke, DSdonburke@pitt.eduDONBURKE
Platt, R
Huang, SS
Contributors:
ContributionContributors NameEmailPitt UsernameORCID
EditorMorgan, DanielUNSPECIFIEDUNSPECIFIEDUNSPECIFIED
Date: 27 December 2011
Date Type: Publication
Journal or Publication Title: PLoS ONE
Volume: 6
Number: 12
DOI or Unique Handle: 10.1371/journal.pone.0029342
Schools and Programs: School of Public Health > Biostatistics
School of Public Health > Epidemiology
School of Medicine > Biomedical Informatics
Refereed: Yes
MeSH Headings: Health Facility Administration; Long-Term Care; Patient Transfer; Social Networking; United States
Other ID: NLM PMC3246493
PubMed Central ID: PMC3246493
PubMed ID: 22216255
Date Deposited: 07 Sep 2012 19:19
Last Modified: 02 Feb 2019 16:57
URI: http://d-scholarship.pitt.edu/id/eprint/14008

Metrics

Monthly Views for the past 3 years

Plum Analytics

Altmetric.com


Actions (login required)

View Item View Item