title: Evaluation in health informatics: social network analysis.
abstract: Social network analysis comprises a set of research methods that can be used to analyze the relationships among entities such as people, departments, and organizations. The purpose of the analysis is to discover patterns of relationships that affect both individual and organizational attitudes and behavior such as the adoption, diffusion, and use of new medical informatics applications. This paper presents an introduction to the concepts and methods of social network analysis. Several applications to health informatics are described.
authors.affiliation: Sociology and Anthropology Department, Purdue University, 1365 Stone Hall, 353 Stone Hall-Office, West Lafayette, IN 47907 1365, USA. andersonj@sri.soc.purdue.edu
authors.forename: James G
authors.initials: JG
authors.lastname: Anderson
mesh_terms: D001290:Attitude; D019058:Community Networks; D003299:Cooperative Behavior; D004867:Equipment Design; D005069:Evaluation Studies as Topic; D006751:Hospital Information Systems / Q000592:standards; D006801:Humans; D008490:Medical Informatics / Q000592:standards*; D016347:Medical Records Systems, Computerized; D012961:Sociology; D013673:Technology Assessment, Biomedical