Social Networks Design of Hospital Facilitators (HFs): An Empirical Study of the Case of Italy

In this paper, the author provides a representation of Ital ian public hospital facilitators (HFs) (clinics, regional or local community hospitals, and medical ce nters) by means of different types of networks. Moving from the balance scorecards of HFs, the author has analyzed the representation of those data through the use of the minimum spanning tree (MST) and the planar maximally-filtered gr aph (PMFG). This paper firstly examined the amount of information provided by the two networks and then run a sensitivity analysis of the networks by varying the elements of the balance scorec ards to be considered. In th is way, the author obtained a quite unusual representation of the overall economic situation of It alian HFs. Moreover, the author observe d the emergence of patterns which in the author’s opinion might help policy makers to realize a more efficient allocation of financial resources among the existing HFs.