Control of epidemics on hospital networks

Abstract

The spread of hospital-related infections such as antibiotic-resistant pathogens forms a major challenge in public healthcare systems world-wide. One of the driving mechanisms of the pathogen spread are referrals or transfers of patients (hosts) between hospitals or readmissions after their stay in the community, constituting a dynamical network of hospitals. We analyze referral patterns of 1 million patients from one Federal State in Germany over the period of three years. We extract the underlying statistics of relocation patterns and build an agent-based computational model of pathogen spread. We simulate an outbreak of an SIS-type infection (susceptible-infected-susceptible) and evaluate characteristic time scales and prevalence levels. For such recurrent diseases, we finally investigate the effect of control measures based on screening and isolation of incoming patients.