Analysis of the hospital claims data from Germany (years 2013-2018) and derivation of transfer matrices

TL;DR

This paper analyzes German hospital claims data from 2013-2018 to understand patient movement patterns and network structure, providing insights crucial for modeling the spread of antibiotic-resistant bacteria within healthcare systems.

Contribution

It offers a detailed analysis of patient transfer patterns and network structure in Germany, derived from hospital claims data, to support epidemiological modeling of pathogen spread.

Findings

Identified patient movement patterns across German states.

Characterized the hospital network structure based on claims data.

Provided transfer matrices for epidemiological modeling.

Abstract

Antibiotic resistant bacteria are a serious threat to public health system. In order to be able to model the spread of this pathogens within healthcare system network, it is necessary to obtain information on patient movements and the structure of the network. To accomplish that we need informations about patient population and their exchange within the network. In this paper, we analysed hospitalisation records which were provided for the EMerGE-Net project to the Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg. We studied and discussed properties of the data with respect to German states. Moreover, we investigated the patterns of patients movements between different states. Then, we took a closer look at resulting hospital network structure, which can be further used to numerically model spread of pathogens.