|
As healthy insurance policy changed, the competition between hospitals of the same district becomes more intense. In order to consolidate health care market share, it is important to know the medical market and patient characteristics for developing suitable business strategies. With hundreds of hospitals and clinics, Taichung city has an intense medical market competition. Via data mining and cluster analysis with National Health Insurance Research Database (NHIRD), a study on patients’ characteristics and treatments of Obstetrics and Gynecology is presented as a reference for Taichung city’s hospitals to develop business strategy.
By analyzing the NHIRD in 2004 for two medical centers in Taichung city, the results are as below. First, by using descriptive analysis, we can conclude that (1) the patients of Obstetrics and Gynecology are concentrated in the 26 to 45 age bracket; (2) the main diagnoses are “normal delivery” and “cancer chemotherapy”.
Second, with cluster analysis, we found that: (1) Cluster analysis method is useful to divide patients into three groups, Case Payment Group, Gynecological Disease Group, and Gynecological Cancer Group. (2) The characteristics of major diseases’ patients are different between groups. In Gynecological Disease Group, the main diagnoses are “malignant neoplasm of cervix uteri” and the main treatment is “radical abdominal hysterectomy”. In Gynecological Cancer Group, The most main diagnoses and treatments are “cancer chemotherapy” and “radiotherapeutic procedure.” (3) The characteristics of Obstetrics and Gynecology inpatients appear differences between the two medical centers. There are at least three differences in the study: (a) In Case Payment Group, Situn District medical center has older patients and more complications or merge sickness at its Obstetrics patients. In North District medical center, the amount of Obstetrics patients is more than Gynecology’s. (b) In Gynecological Disease Group, Situn District medical center has older patients with “malignant neoplasm of cervix uteri” as its popular main diagnoses. The number of patients with “carcinoma in situ of cervix uteri” is the largest in North District medical center. (c) In Gynecological Cancer Group, more patients of Situn District medical center were treated with “cancer chemotherapy”, and patients of the North District medical center were commonly treated with “cancer chemotherapy” and “radiotherapeutic procedure.”
|