Data mining and visualization for decision support and modeling of public health-care resources

This paper proposes an innovative use of data mining and visualization techniques for decision support in planning and regional-level management of Slovenian public health-care. Data mining and statistical techniques were used to analyze databases collected by a regional Public Heath Institute. We also studied organizational aspects of public health resources in the selected Celje region with the objective to identify the areas that are atypical in terms of availability and accessibility of public health services for the population. The most important step was the detection of outliers and the analysis of availability and accessibility deviations. The results are applicable to health-care planning and support in decision making by local and regional health-care authorities. In addition to the practical results, which are directly useful for decision making in planning of the regional health-care system, the main methodological contribution of the paper are the developed visualization methods that can be used to facilitate knowledge management and decision making processes. (C) 2006 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.