• Ryan J Coller, Harold D Green, Patrick C Kaminski, Kristina Howell, Elena Alfaro, Cassandra Nelson, Gemma Warner, and Nicole E Werner.
• School of Medicine and Public Health, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, Wisconsin, USA.
• J Hosp Med. 2024 Jan 1; 19 (1): 353935-39.

AbstractSince most care for children with medical complexity (CMC) is delivered daily in communities by multiple caregiving individuals, that is, caregiving networks, tools to assess and intervene across these networks are needed. This study evaluated the feasibility of applying social network analysis (SNA) to describe caregiving networks. Because hospitalization is among the most frequently used outcomes for CMC, exploratory correlations between network characteristics and CMC hospital use were evaluated. Within 3 weeks, the goal network enrollment was achieved, and all feasibility measures were favorable. Network characteristics correlated with hospital use, that is, smaller, denser networks, with more closed-loop communication correlated with fewer hospital days. Networks with more professional caregivers also correlated with fewer hospital days. SNA is a feasible tool to study CMC caregiving networks. Preliminary data support rigorous hypothesis testing using SNA methods. Network-based interventions to improve CMC health may be an important future direction.© 2023 The Authors. Journal of Hospital Medicine published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of Society of Hospital Medicine.

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