Social-Network Analysis for Pain Medications Influential physicians may not be high-volume prescribers

According to the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies, more than 100 million Americans suffer from chronic pain related to diabetes, heart disease, and cancer combined. Adoption of pain medications and safe healthcare practices is a major global policy concern. This adoption process is hi...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:2017 IEEE/ACM International Conference on Advances in Social Networks Analysis and Mining (ASONAM) pp. 881 - 885
Main Authors: Choudhury, Abhinav, Kaushik, Shruti, Dutt, Varun
Format: Conference Proceeding
Language:English
Published: New York, NY, USA ACM 31.07.2017
Series:ACM Conferences
Subjects:
Applied computing
Applied computing > Law, social and behavioral sciences
Applied computing > Law, social and behavioral sciences > Sociology
Applied computing > Life and medical sciences
Applied computing > Life and medical sciences > Consumer health
Applied computing > Life and medical sciences > Health care information systems
Applied computing > Life and medical sciences > Health informatics
eigenvector centrality
gender
Human-centered computing
Human-centered computing > Collaborative and social computing
Human-centered computing > Collaborative and social computing > Collaborative and social computing design and evaluation methods
Human-centered computing > Collaborative and social computing > Collaborative and social computing design and evaluation methods > Social network analysis
Information systems
Information systems > Information systems applications
Information systems > Information systems applications > Data mining
Networks
Networks > Network types
Networks > Network types > Overlay and other logical network structures
Networks > Network types > Overlay and other logical network structures > Online social networks
pain medications
Social network analysis
Social network analysis
pain medications
gender
eigenvector centrality
ISBN:1450349935, 9781450349932
ISSN:2473-991X
Online Access:Get full text
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Summary:According to the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies, more than 100 million Americans suffer from chronic pain related to diabetes, heart disease, and cancer combined. Adoption of pain medications and safe healthcare practices is a major global policy concern. This adoption process is highly influenced by the interpersonal network of physicians prescribing medications to treat pain. However, existing research into physician networks have been hospital-specific, applied to a smaller number of physicians, and dependent upon physicians' self-reports. In this paper, using big-data and data-mining, we overcome these limitations: By using a case of 30+ hospitals spanning across 2000+ physicians, we create a social network containing physicians' prescription data and adoption behavior of pain medications. The social network assumes that connected physicians work in the same hospital and belong to the same specialty or specialty group. Then, using the centrality measures, degree and eigenvector centrality, we analyze prescription volumes and proportion of adopters of pain medications. We also analyze gender effects. Results revealed that the most influential physicians were not the high-volume prescribers. Male physicians were more influential compared to female physicians; however, females prescribed more volume compared to males. Our results help us identify critical physicians from certain core specialties and specialty groups who may be approached by patients seeking pain relief.
ISBN:1450349935
9781450349932
ISSN:2473-991X
DOI:10.1145/3110025.3110113