Care as a complex system: understanding the network dynamics of healthcare delivery

Recent years have seen the emergence of computational techniques that are able to understand complex systems. In medicine, these techniques have largely been applied to derive new drug therapies or improve diagnosis. They have not been applied to understand how the health system itself may be more fair or efficient. 

I will explore three pressing questions facing health systems across the world: How should clinical information be shared across the healthcare system? How will changes to clinical services affect patients and clinicians? How can we organise primary and secondary care services to make patient care safer, fairer and more efficient?

I will apply the latest methodological techniques in data science and network analysis to explore healthcare in the NHS and internationally as a complex system, and in doing so empower patients, clinicians and policy makers to make informed decisions to improve how healthcare is delivered.