Care as a Complex System: Understanding the Network Dynamics of Healthcare Delivery (360G-Wellcome-215938_Z_19_Z)

Health systems are a product of the interactions between healthcare professionals and their patients. These interactions may be understood as networks connecting all actors within the health system to one another through their clinical interactions. In doing so, the provision of healthcare becomes a complex system which may be interrogated and understood using methods of network analysis not previously used in population health research. In the fellowship I will address critical questions facing health systems today, using the latest techniques in machine learning, econometrics and network analysis. I will derive patient-sharing networks to understand how clinical data may be safely, and efficiently shared between patients and clinicians. Through the application of random forest and alternative-specific conditional logit models I will develop new ways to understand how clinical demand is redistributed following sudden or planned changes to hospital services. Using Markov Multiscale Community Detection, I will identify how current primary and secondary care services may be integrated to enhance continuity of care between clinicians while ensuring accountability for the entire population served by the National Health Service. Collectively, the techniques developed during this fellowship will empower patients, clinicians and policymakers to make informed decisions to improve how healthcare is delivered.