Abstract:
The goal of this project is to describe existing systems of medication management in ambulatory care
using network analyses methods. This study will identify how network patterns may produce clues to
how they link to patient outcome characteristics and patient safety. A longitudinal, roster survey will
be used for collecting data in order to conduct network analysis. A longitudinal design is important to
be able to collect an accurate representation of medication management over the long-term. Roster
survey instruments are a method used to collect data in social network analysis when the research objective
is to track who communicates within a given complete network. For this study, medication
management will be defined as any task, communication, or other exchange that links a minimum of
two persons in the network regarding a patient’s medication therapy. The network analysis will be
described in terms of nodes (individual staff, providers and patients) and ties (the number of communications
between them). Each network analysis will focus on the interconnectedness (density) and
the prominence (centrality) of nodes in each network as is consistent with examining public health
systems. Results from the proposed study will determine the utility of a quantitative social network
analysis of organizational or ‘structural’ dynamics for evaluation of medication management in ambulatory
care. Findings from this study will be useful in two ways: 1) it will determine feasibility of
an assessment tool and 2) it will broaden the application of a methodology not previously use in ambulatory
care.
