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In this study, we consider the human body and the healthcare system as two complex networks and use theories regarding entropy, requisite variety, and network centrality metrics with resilience to assess and quantify the strengths and weaknesses of healthcare systems. Entropy is used to quantify the uncertainty and variety regarding a patient's health state. The extent of the entropy defines the requisite variety a healthcare system should contain to be able to treat a patient safely and correctly. We use network centrality metrics to visualize and quantify the healthcare system as a network and assign the strengths and weaknesses of the network and of individual agents in the network. We apply organization design theories to formulate improvements and explain how a healthcare system should adjust to create a more robust and resilient healthcare system that is able to continuously deal with variations and uncertainties regarding a patient's health, despite possible stressors and disturbances at the healthcare system. In this article, these concepts and theories are explained and applied to a fictive and a real-life example. We conclude that entropy and network science can be used as tools to quantify the resilience of healthcare systems.
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http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/e26010021 | DOI Listing |
Respirology
September 2025
Division of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine, Department of Internal Medicine, Severance Hospital, Yonsei University College of Medicine, Seoul, South Korea.
Mult Scler
September 2025
Neuroimaging Unit, Neuroimmunology Division, Department of Neurology, Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Nashville, TN, USA; Department of Neurology, VA Medical Center, TN Valley Healthcare System, Nashville, TN, USA.
Background: There is limited knowledge on the post-glymphatic structures such as the parasagittal dural (PSD) space and the arachnoid granulations (AGs) in multiple sclerosis (MS).
Objectives: To evaluate differences in volume and macromolecular content of PSD and AG between people with newly diagnosed MS (pwMS), clinically isolated syndrome (pwCIS), or radiologically isolated syndrome (pwRIS) and healthy controls (HCs) and their associations with clinical and radiological disease measures.
Methods: A total of 69 pwMS, pwCIS, pwRIS, and HCs underwent a 3.
Front Rehabil Sci
August 2025
Department of Neurosurgery, David Geffen School of Medicine, University of California, Los Angeles, CA, United States.
Introduction: Spinal cord injury (SCI) presents a significant burden to patients, families, and the healthcare system. The ability to accurately predict functional outcomes for SCI patients is essential for optimizing rehabilitation strategies, guiding patient and family decision making, and improving patient care.
Methods: We conducted a retrospective analysis of 589 SCI patients admitted to a single acute rehabilitation facility and used the dataset to train advanced machine learning algorithms to predict patients' rehabilitation outcomes.
Background: Transforming Clinical Practice Guideline (CPG) recommendations into computer readable language is a complex and ongoing process that requires significant resources, including time, expertise, and funds. The objective is to provide an extension of the widely used GIN-McMaster Guideline Development Checklist (GDC) and Tool for the development of computable guidelines (CGs).
Methods: Based on an outcome from the Human Centered Design (HCD) workshop hosted by the Guidelines International Network North America (GIN-NA), a team was formed to develop the checklist extension.
J Healthc Sci Humanit
January 2024
Bioethics Honors Student.
Efforts to reduce the unequal impacts and generations of systemic disadvantage and inequality in healthcare for black and brown communities became amplified and were made more urgent during the COVID-19 pandemic. Moreover, public health surveillance systems have been challenged to address the vulnerabilities that residents within these environments and experiences. This paper describes the methodology used to develop a public health ethics and bioethics surveillance system grounded in empathy and care ethics.
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