Identifying influential individuals on intensive care units: using cluster analysis to explore culture

Area of Science:

• Healthcare Management
• Organizational Behavior
• Social Network Analysis

Background:

• Organizational culture significantly impacts patient safety in healthcare settings.
• Explicit strategies for modifying organizational culture, particularly in intensive care units (ICUs), remain underdeveloped.

Purpose of the Study:

• To identify attribute patterns of influential individuals within intensive care units.
• To apply unsupervised cluster analysis for categorizing influencers based on their characteristics.

Main Methods:

• A social network analysis survey was administered to healthcare professionals.
• Unsupervised cluster analysis was employed to group individuals based on shared attributes.

Main Results:

• Data from 100 surveys were analyzed.
• Cluster analysis identified three primary influencer categories: well-rounded, knowledge-focused, and relationally-oriented.
• These categories represent distinct patterns of influence within the ICU team.

Conclusions:

• Individual influencers significantly shape the local culture within intensive care units.
• Cluster analysis effectively characterizes influential team members based on peer recognition.
• Integrating identified influencers into intervention strategies can foster more sustainable culture change.
• Further research is underway to assess the impact of utilizing these influencers for disseminating patient safety interventions.