Medicinski Glasnik (Feb 2008)
Data mining usage in health care management: literature survey and decision tree application
Abstract
Aim To show the benefits of data mining in health care management.In this example, we are going to show a way to raise awarenessof women in terms of contraceptive methods they use (do notuse).Methods Goal of the data mining analysis was to determine ifthere are common characteristics of the women according to theirchoice of contraception (typical classification problem). Therefore,we decided to use decision trees. We have generated a CHAIDmodel in “Statistica”, based on the database that was formed as aresult of an Indonesian research that was conducted in 1987. Thesample contains married women who were either not pregnant ordid not know if they were pregnant at the time of the interview.The database consists of 1473 cases. Also, an extensive internetsearch was conducted in order to detect a number of articles citedin scientific databases published on the subject of data mining inhealth care management.Results It has shown that the most important variable in case ofwomen’s choice of contraceptive methods is – a husband’s profession.Also we retrieved 221 articles published on the application ofdata mining in health care.Conclusion The goal of the paper is achieved in two ways: first,retrieving 221 articles published on the subject we have proved thebenefits of data mining in the health care management. Second,the decision tree method is successfully applied in explanation ofwomen’s choice of contraceptive methods.
