Clustering patient mobility patterns to assess effectiveness of health-service delivery


Delil S., Çelik R. N., SAN S., Dundar M.

BMC HEALTH SERVICES RESEARCH, cilt.17, 2017 (SCI-Expanded) identifier identifier identifier

  • Yayın Türü: Makale / Tam Makale
  • Cilt numarası: 17
  • Basım Tarihi: 2017
  • Doi Numarası: 10.1186/s12913-017-2381-2
  • Dergi Adı: BMC HEALTH SERVICES RESEARCH
  • Derginin Tarandığı İndeksler: Science Citation Index Expanded (SCI-EXPANDED), Scopus
  • İstanbul Teknik Üniversitesi Adresli: Evet

Özet

Background: Analysis of patient mobility in a country not only gives an idea of how the health-care system works, but also can be a guideline to determine the quality of health care and health disparity among regions. Even though determination of patient movement is important, it is not often realized that patient mobility could have a unique pattern beyond health-related endowments (e.g., facilities, medical staff). This study therefore addresses the following research question: Is there a way to identify regions with similar patterns using spatio-temporal distribution of patient mobility? The aim of the paper is to answer this question and improve a classification method that is useful for populous countries like Turkey that have many administrative areas.