Healthcare providers (HCP) naturally form collaborative communities to coordinate patient care and share medical knowledge and treatment information. Such HCP collaborative communities play an important role in integrating care, diffusing technology, reducing cost, and driving better health outcomes. However, collaborative communities are not formal groups or organizations, and there is no registry or database that directly captures them.
Challenges in detecting collaborative communities include disjunctive and disparate network information (i.e., no central data storage for data concerning multiple types of relationships), complexities of relationships amongst individuals (e.g., high dimensionality-many individuals and many types of relationships), especially amongst HCPs, astronomical numbers of community formations, and corresponding high computational demand.
Conventional approaches to analyzing relationships amongst HCPs only consider a single relationship at a time. Conventional approaches do not provide a comprehensive method of identifying collaborative communities of HCPs.
In the drawings, the leftmost digit(s) of a reference number identifies the drawing in which the reference number first appears.
A conventional graph convolutional network (GCN) is a relatively powerful neural network architecture for machine learning on graphs. A conventional GCN is not, however, able to operate across multiple disparate types of graphs.
Disclosed herein are methods and systems to extract information regarding multiple types of relationships amongst individuals from a myriad of data sources, and to construct a multitude of disparate networks or graphs of the respective relationships.
Also disclosed herein are methods and systems to detect collaborative communities of individuals from the multitude of disparate networks (i.e., from the multiple types of relationships amongst the individuals) using a customized deep learning Multiplex Graph Convolutional Networks (MGCN) artificial intelligence machine learning (AIML) approach. A “collaborative community” refers to a group of nodes (i.e., representing individuals) that are densely connected within the community but only sparsely connected to nodes of other communities.
Examples are provided below with respect to collaborative communities of heath care providers or professionals (HCPs). Methods and systems disclosed herein are not, however, limited to HCPs.
HCPs within networks 104 may evolve to form HCP collaborative communities 106, where one or more members of each collaborative community serves as, or is viewed as a primary or essential reference (e.g., influencer, motivator, point of contact, etc.) for other members of the community.
Networks 104 and/or collaborative communities 106 may be defined, characterized, and/or detected based on environmental and societal factors 102.
Data may need to be extracted from a myriad of data sources just to identify or define networks 104. Examples are provided further below with reference to
Due to complexities (e.g., high volume and high dimensionality) of networks 104, HCP collaborative communities 106 may not be readily apparent or ascertainable from professional networks 104, even with conventional artificial intelligence machine learning.
At 202, data related to multiple types of relationships amongst individuals is mined from various data sources. The data sources may include public and/or proprietary data sources.
At 204, multiple training graphs are constructed to represent the respective types of relationships amongst individuals. Within each graph, individuals may be represented with nodes or vertices, relationships amongst the individuals may be represented with edges or links between the respective nodes/vertices.
At 206, a multiplex graph convolutional network (MGCN) analysis is performed across the multiple training graphs to identify collaborative communities of the individuals based on the multiple types of relationships amongst the individuals.
MGCN analysis at 206 may include machine learning/training a mathematical representation of the training graphs and clustering the individuals into communities based on the mathematical representation of the training graphs.
The machine learning/training may be configured to optimize a number of the communities relative to densities (e.g., modularity, homogeneity, and/or cohesiveness) of the communities. It may be useful to define or constrain collaborative communities to a set of relatively densely connected HCEs. If collaborative communities are defined to broadly, many links with the communities may be relatively weak. The machine learning/training may thus be configured to optimize a number of the communities relative to densities (e.g., modularity, homogeneity, and/or cohesiveness) of the communities.
Framework 300 includes data sources 302, which may be mined for network data 305. Data mining may include defining factors/features relevant to individuals of interest. In a HCP application, this may include, without limitation, defining a therapeutic class(es), and crafting market definition and business rules (e.g., study period, look-back period, etc.). Data mining may include extracting a list of relevant individuals. In a HCP application, this may include, extracting a list of HCPs from a prescriber universe. Data mining may include appending geographical location, consumer attributes, doctor companion data and U.S. census social economics data to HCPs of interest and storing it as ancillary data 304.
Training graphs 306 are constructed from network data 305. Each training graph represents a respective type of relationship amongst HCPs. Types of relationships are not limited to the examples of
Further in the example of
In the example of
In the example of
Peer sociometric graph 306A may represent discussion and advice relationships amongst HCPs.
Patient centric graph 306B may represent, without limitation, a relationship within a referral network (e.g., where a HCP refers a patient to another HCP for treatment) and/or a relationship within a non-referral patient sharing network (e.g., where a patient sees two HCPs in a short period of time, while the patient is not referred by one of the HCPs to the other HCP).
Affiliation graph 306C may represent HCPs affiliated by hospital, practice group, or other facility/entity/status.
Scientific collaboration graph 306D may represent relationships amongst HCPs who co-author a paper or co-present at a conference.
Social media graph 306E may represent HCPs who are connected through social media (e.g., Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, etc.).
Construction of patient centric graph 306B may include:
Construction of patient affiliation graph 306C may include:
Construction of scientific collaboration graph 306D may include:
Construction of social media graph 306E may include:
Construction of peer sociometric graph 306A may include:
Building of the link prediction model may include using:
Multiplex network topology 308 may be constructed based on:
MGCN algorithms 310 may be configured to output:
To summarize, in training graphs 306, HCP relationships or associations amongst HCPs are captured as links and strengths of links (e.g., weight based on how many times HCP's talk to one another in a day), and HCP characteristics (e.g., practice area/specialty, how many patients shared amongst doctors, etc.). These features will be embedded into a mathematical representation of training graphs 306. Strengths of links is a measure of how tightly HCPs are linked or related to one another. Relative influence of HCPs may be discerned from collaborative communities.
Schematic 400 illustrates a multiplex graph convolutional network (MGCN) artificial intelligence machine/learning (AIML) process that is performed across multiple training graphs to identify collaborative communities of individuals based on the multiple types of relationships amongst the individuals.
In an embodiment, schematic 400 inputs a network structure (adjacent matrix) and node attributes and learns a hidden node representation (Z) through a deep multiplex graph infomax encoder. The learned node embedding then is fitted into a trainable soft clustering layer. The node clusters may be optimized to maximize graph modularity and minimize the loss of the graph encoder during training.
In the example of
Multiplex graphs 402 may be compressed into a mathematical function 404, illustrated here as H. H represents a generalized or simplified form of graphs 402, which may be used to cluster individuals into collaborative communities 410. H may take the form of a vector or matrix.
Compression may include layer-level embedding at 406, intra-graph weighting, pooling, and combining at 408. With layer-level embedding, each graph of multiplex graphs 402 becomes a layer (e.g., layers H(1), H(2), and H(3)).
Pooling is a process of compressing or reducing a dimensionality of a layer-level embedding. Pooling reduces the number of parameters to process, which reduces computation effort.
Artificial intelligence machine learning may be utilized to learn or tune mathematical representation 404 and/or to tune other parameters of schematic 400. Parameters may be tuned, for example, to optimize a number of collaborative communities 410 relative to densities (modularity/homogeneity/cohesiveness) of collaborative communities 410.
In the example of
Multiplex graphs 402 may be weighted to reflect relative importance of the graphs. For example, with reference to
Multiplex graphs 402 may include tens, hundreds, thousands, or even tens of thousands of dimensions/features (i.e., high dimensionality data). Such high dimensionality data may be impractical or even impossible to process with conventional algorithms on conventional machines. During pooling at 408, data dimensionality is reduced (e.g., to tens or hundreds of dimensions). This vastly reduces computational resources (e.g., number of operations) needed to perform functions described herein. Dimensionality reduction, in combination with joint optimization, makes it possible/practical to extract collaborative communities from multiplex graphs 402 in a machine (although it would still be impractical to perform in a human mind).
Pooling at 408 may be configurable with respect to a level or extent of dimensionality reduction (e.g., reduction to . . . , 10, 40, 100, 150, 200 . . . dimensions). In an embodiment, the level or extent of dimensionality reduction remains fixed during joint optimization. Alternatively, an optimum set of collaborative communities 410 is determined for each of multiple levels of dimensionality reduction. A loss function may be computed for each set of collaborative communities 410, and the set with the smallest loss function may be selected as an optimum set of collaborative communities 410. The extent of dimensionality reduction associated with the optimum set may be treated as a trained/tuned parameter.
Joint optimization may be based in part on an accuracy of H (i.e., how well H represents multiplex graphs 402). In the example of
In machine learning, regularization is a procedure that shrinks a co-efficient towards zero. In other terms, regularization means the discouragement of learning a more complex or more flexible machine learning model to prevent overfitting. It is also considered a process of adding more information to resolve a complex issue and avoid over-fitting. Regularization applies mainly to the objective functions in problematic optimization.
For consensus regularization 414, multiplex graphs 416 are constructed (e.g., predicted from mathematical function H). Multiplex graphs 416 may be referred to herein as predicted multiplex graphs, corrupted multiplex graphs, generated multiplex graphs, and/or pure multiplex graphs.
Predicted multiplex graphs 416 may be compressed into a mathematical function, , such as described above with respect to mathematical function H.
In consensus regularization 414, the mathematical functions are compared, and a consensus regularization function Z is determined based on the comparison. Consensus regularization function Z may indicate or represent how well H represents multiplex graphs 402.
Consensus regularization function Z may be utilized in joint optimization 412 (i.e., in computing a joint optimization function). EQ. (1), for example, includes the following regularization functions/parameters:
Joint optimization may include tuning parameters to minimize a difference between H and , or to minimize Z. For example, as noted further above, ●=●●(●),●,●,●● are trainable parameters. ● controls the importance of the consensus regularization, and ● is a coefficient for ● regularization on ●.
To summarize, multiplex graphs 402 are compressed into vectors (layer-level embedding), also referred to herein as embedding or transforming into a matrix form. A pooling layer combines the vectors/matrices using a regularization formula (e.g., to average them). In other words, a matrix is formed with consensus regularization, and weights are added into the matrix. The matrix is then decomposed into graph form (i.e., into predicted multiplex graphs 416). This provides a way to construct a loss function by comparing predicted multiplex graphs 416 to the real/input network (i.e., multiplex graphs 402), through an AI algorithm. If H is good/accurate, predicted multiplex graphs 416 should be similar to multiplex graphs 402. By comparing the two, a loss function may be computed. Parameters (e.g., inter-graph weights) may then be tuned to minimize the loss function to gradually evolve H. This may be referred to herein as learning/training/tuning a mathematical representation of the original network.
Collaborative communities 410 may be represented as or may include community network topology (e.g., relationship links and tie weights). Network topology data may be organized as rows and columns of data. Each row may include a pair of HCEs listed in respective columns of the row. Information regarding a relationship between the HCEs may be provided in another column of the row. Yet another column of the row may identify a collaborative community to which the pair of HCE's belong. This may be referred to herein as a bipartite data structure, in which HCEs are presented in pairs.
Collaborative communities 410 may include a HCP community leader score, a measure of multiplex centrality, and/or HCP community roles.
Collaborative communities 410 may include one or more community measures such as density, volume, betweenness, connected value, Rx size, etc.
Collaborative communities 410 may include doctor IDs, locations, community density of community, a measure of the community (e.g., betweenness value in Rx/sales value), information regarding relationships within each collaborative community, and/or a role of the collaborative community within the overall network. For each collaborative community, a leader may also be identified (i.e., one who sits in middle of the collaborative community, who has connections to majority of community members, and/or the most relationships within the collaborative community). Other members of a collaborative community may be identified as followers.
An individual may be assigned to a community to minimize loss.
An individual may be assigned to no more than one community, even if the individual has connections/relationships with individuals of other communities.
Collaborative communities 410 may be presented on a display, such as described below with reference to
One or more features disclosed herein may be implemented in, without limitation, circuitry, a machine, a computer system, a processor and memory, a computer program encoded within a computer-readable medium, and/or combinations thereof. Circuitry may include discrete and/or integrated circuitry, application specific integrated circuitry (ASIC), a system-on-a-chip (SOC), and combinations thereof.
Information processing by software may be concretely realized by using hardware resources.
System 1000 includes a data mining engine 1002 to mine relationship and auxiliary data 1004 from data sources 1006, such as described in one or more examples herein.
System 1000 further includes a graph construction engine 1008 to construct relationship graphs 1010 from relationship and auxiliary data 1004, such as described in one or more examples herein.
System 1000 further includes a multiplex graph convolutional network (MGCN) analysis engine 1012 to identify collaborative communities 1014 from relationship graphs 1010. MGCN analysis engine 1012 may be configured to learn/train joint optimization functions/parameters 1016, such as described in one or more examples herein.
System 1000 further includes a graphical user interface (GUI) engine 1018 to present information related to collaborative communities 1014 on a display 1020, such as described in one or more examples herein.
Computer system 1100 includes one or more instruction processors, illustrated here as a processor 1102, to execute instructions 1110 of a computer program 1106 encoded within a computer-readable medium 1104. Computer-readable medium 1104 further includes data 1108, which may be used by processor 1102 during execution of computer program 1106, and/or generated by processor 1102 during execution of computer program 1106.
Computer-readable medium 1104 may include a transitory or non-transitory computer-readable medium.
In the example of
Instructions 1110 further include graph construction instructions 1116 to cause processor 1102 to construct relationship graphs 1118 from relationship and auxiliary data 1114, such as described in one or more examples herein.
Instructions 1110 further include multiplex graph convolutional network (MGCN) analysis instructions 1120 to cause processor 1102 to identify collaborative communities 1124 from relationship graphs 1118. MGCN analysis instructions 1120 may be configured to cause processor 1102 to learn/train joint optimization functions/parameters 1122, such as described in one or more examples herein.
Instructions 1110 further include graphical user interface (GUI) instructions 1126 to cause processor 1102 to present information related to collaborative communities 1124 on a display 1132, such as described in one or more examples herein.
Computer system 1100 may include communications infrastructure 1140 to communicate amongst devices and/or resources of computer system 1100.
Computer system 1100 may include one or more input/output (I/O) devices and/or controllers 1142 to interface with data sources 1130 and display 1132.
Methods and systems disclosed herein may be useful to overcome unique challenges in detecting communities in HCP multiplex networks. Detection of HCP collaborative communities may open new avenues to pharmaceutical commercialization. Such a community solution may be useful in omni-channel marketing, next-best AIML platform solution, thought leader and physician targeting, etc.
By harnessing a variety of opensource and/or proprietary data, as disclosed herein, complex community structures may be uncovered and collaborative communities of individuals who are linked through multi-dimensional relationships may be detected.
In a healthcare environment, identification of collaborative communities may provide a basis for community-based patient care and brand commercial strategies, such as next-best customer identification, leader influence mapping, and product launch planning. Uncovering the constituents and characteristics of such collaborative communities may be useful to integrate care, avoid redundancy, reduce cost, and improve patient health outcomes. Potential applications include:
Marketing Optimization:
Next-best-customer:
Key Opinion Leader (KOL), Segmentation, Targeting, Sizing, and Planning:
Pull-through via other field force teams:
Lifecycle management:
Patient Outcome research:
Identification of collaborative communities, in an HCP environment, may be useful for, without limitation:
Methods and systems are disclosed herein with the aid of functional building blocks illustrating functions, features, and relationships thereof. At least some of the boundaries of these functional building blocks have been arbitrarily defined herein for the convenience of the description. Alternate boundaries may be defined so long as the specified functions and relationships thereof are appropriately performed. While various embodiments are disclosed herein, it should be understood that they are presented as examples. The scope of the claims should not be limited by any of the example embodiments disclosed herein.