Socioeconomic analysis of patient-centric networks: effects of patients and hospitals' characteristics and network structure on hospitalization costs.

Improving operations and delivery of cost-effective healthcare services is considered to be an important area of investigation due to the challenges in allocation of resources in meeting the increasing cost of health care for the twenty-first century. To date, appropriate mechanisms for systematic evaluation of hospital operations and its impact of the delivery of cost-effective healthcare services are 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.