Using social network principles to structure linkages between providers and patients

This paper uses social network principles to explain the sources of and variations in relationships among health care providers and patients. General principles of social networks applied are global structure, structural equivalence, structural conduciveness, and the duality of network linkages. Specific principles employed to understand structural variability in provider interrelationships are structural encapsulation and structural excludability, centrality and integration, subgroups and structural holes, close ties versus weak ties, and the virtual ties created by computersupported social networks (CSSNs). Various ways that social network principles help explain the evolving complexities of interconnectedness among health care providers and patients are demonstrated. Practical advantages of using social network principles to organize and to manage interrelationships among health care providers and patients are discussed.