Network analysis of intra-hospital transfers and hospital onset clostridium difficile infection.

Objectives: To explore how social network analysis (SNA) can be used to analyse intra-hospital patient networks of individuals with a hospital acquired infection (HAI) for further analysis in a geographical information systems (GIS) environment.

Methods: A case and control study design was used to select 2008 patients. We retrieved locational data for the patients, which was then translated into a network with the SNA software and then GIS software.