title: A Social Network Analysis of Cancer Provider Collaboration.
abstract: Cancer treatment often consists of multiple therapeutic modalities delivered by specialists. As changing reimbursement paradigms move towards quality outcomes and bundled payments, extensive care coordination between healthcare providers is imperative. We developed an approach to quantify care coordination relationships among providers treating breast cancer patients at the Vanderbilt University Medical Center. Our cohort of 1285 providers treated 3924 breast cancer patients, and had 1758 unique provider-provider relationships. Providers treating stage III breast cancer patients had the highest ratio of providers to patients, indicating a more tightly connected network than providers treating stage I or II patients. Network analysis can provide quantitative approaches to understanding the relationships of multi-specialty providers and may inform approaches to measuring the impact of care coordination on outcomes.
authors.affiliation: Department of Biomedical Informatics.
authors.forename: Bryan D
authors.initials: BD
authors.lastname: Steitz
authors.affiliation: Department of Biomedical Informatics; Department of Medicine, Division of Hematology and Oncology, Nashville, TN.
authors.forename: Mia A
authors.initials: MA
authors.lastname: Levy
mesh_terms: D001943:Breast Neoplasms / Q000628:therapy*; D003299:Cooperative Behavior; D005260:Female; D006282:Health Personnel / Q000458:organization & administration*; D006801:Humans; D010346:Patient Care Management; D010348:Patient Care Team / Q000458:organization & administration*; D012944:Social Support