ArticleScientific reports2017
Influence of a patient transfer network of US inpatient facilities on the incidence of nosocomial infections.
Article in Scientific reports, 2017. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 17 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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Who cites it
17 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- Applications of network analysis to routinely collected health care data: a systematic review.Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association : JAMIA · 2018Pooled it
- Reconstructing healthcare networks from patient transfer data: A systematic review.PLOS digital health · 2026Article
- Novel surveillance design exploiting network analysis for efficient, rapid detection of emerging Clostridioides difficile strains.Nature communications · 2026Article
- Identifying and forecasting importation and asymptomatic spreaders of multi-drug resistant organisms in hospital settings.NPJ digital medicine · 2025Article
- Identifying and Forecasting Importation and Asymptomatic Spreaders of Multi-drug Resistant Organisms in Hospital Settings.medRxiv : the preprint server for health sciences · 2025Article
- Using spectral characterization to identify healthcare-associated infection (HAI) patients for clinical contact precaution.Scientific reports · 2023Article
- Real-time updating of dynamic social networks for COVID-19 vaccination strategies.Journal of ambient intelligence and humanized computing · 2023Article
- Review of social networks of professionals in healthcare settings-where are we and what else is needed?Globalization and health · 2021Review
- The Use of a Three-in-One Practice-Management-Innovation Training Model in the Construction of an Infection Control Team.Risk management and healthcare policy · 2021Article
- Modelling pathogen spread in a healthcare network: Indirect patient movements.PLoS computational biology · 2020Article
- Assessing the role of inter-facility patient transfer in the spread of carbapenemase-producing Enterobacteriaceae: the case of France between 2012 and 2015.Scientific reports · 2020Article
- A Social Network Analysis Approach for Contact Tracing in the Hospital Setting.Delaware journal of public health · 2020Article
- Article
- Using hospital network-based surveillance for antimicrobial resistance as a more robust alternative to self-reporting.PloS one · 2019Article
- A scoping review of patient-sharing network studies using administrative data.Translational behavioral medicine · 2018Article
- Article
- Outcomes of Ventilated Patients With Sepsis Who Undergo Interhospital Transfer: A Nationwide Linked Analysis.Critical care medicine · 2018Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
5 authors.
Funding
Abstract
Antibiotic-resistant bacterial infections are a substantial source of morbidity and mortality and have a common reservoir in inpatient settings. Transferring patients between facilities could be a mechanism for the spread of these infections. We wanted to assess whether a network of hospitals, linked by inpatient transfers, contributes to the spread of nosocomial infections and investigate how network structure may be leveraged to design efficient surveillance systems. We construct a network defined by the transfer of Medicare patients across US inpatient facilities using a 100% sample of inpatient discharge claims from 2006-2007. We show the association between network structure and C. difficile incidence, with a 1% increase in a facility's C. difficile incidence being associated with a 0.53% increase in C. difficile incidence of neighboring facilities. Finally, we used network science methods to determine the facilities to monitor to maximize surveillance efficiency. An optimal surveillance strategy for selecting "sensor" hospitals, based on their network position, detects 80% of the C. difficile infections using only 2% of hospitals as sensors. Selecting a small fraction of facilities as "sensors" could be a cost-effective mechanism to monitor emerging nosocomial infections.
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