Mina Ostovari, a 5th-year PhD student in Dr. Denny Yu's HEAL research group, received two travel grants - one from the College of Engineering's Conference Travel Grants for Purdue Engineering PhD Candidates, and one from the Women in Engineering Program (WIEP). She traveled to San Francisco to present her research titled "Identifying Key Players in the Care Process of Patients with Diabetes Using Social network Analysis and Administrative Data" at the American Medical Informatics Association (AMIA) 2018 Annual Symposium on Nov. 4.

Ostovari is grateful for the travel funding. "This is my first conference after passing my preliminary exam and my last conference as a graduate student," she said. "AMIA is an international gathering bringing informatics professionals from various backgrounds to transform healthcare through technology and informatics in a unique networking setting. Attending this conference provides a great opportunity to connect with healthcare professional and researchers, and to discuss the implementation of my research, plus connecting me with potential future employers."

ABSTRACT

Determining networks of healthcare providers quantitatively can identify impactful care processes that improve health outcomes for a high-risk populations such as elderly people with multiple chronic conditions. By applying social network analysis to health claim data of a large university in the Midwest, we measured healthcare provider networks of patients with diabetes for two consecutive years. Networks were built based on the assumption that having common patients may indicate potential working relationships between providers. Measures of the social network analysis including degree and betweenness centrality were utilized to identify healthcare providers with an important role in the care process. Both degree and betweenness centrality measures identified a supply center and three laboratories as the central providers of the network for both years. This study can positively impact informed decision-making of policymakers and insurance companies to better design their insurance coverage plans based on the collaboration patterns of the healthcare providers.