Categorize Readmitted Patients in Intensive Medicine by Means of Clustering Data Mining

Categorize Readmitted Patients in Intensive Medicine by Means of Clustering Data Mining

Rui Veloso, Filipe Portela, Manuel Filipe Santos, José Machado, António da Silva Abelha, Fernando Rua, Álvaro Silva
Copyright: © 2020 |Pages: 16
DOI: 10.4018/978-1-7998-2451-0.ch005
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Abstract

With a constant increasing in the health expenses and the aggravation of the global economic situation, managing costs and resources in healthcare is nowadays an essential point in the management of hospitals. The goal of this work is to apply clustering techniques to data collected in real-time about readmitted patients in Intensive Care Units in order to know some possible features that affect readmissions in this area. By knowing the common characteristics of readmitted patients it will be possible helping to improve patient outcome, reduce costs and prevent future readmissions. In this study, it was followed the Stability and Workload Index for Transfer (SWIFT) combined with the results of clinical tests for substances like lactic acid, leucocytes, bilirubin, platelets and creatinine. Attributes like sex, age and identification if the patient came from the chirurgical block were also considered in the characterization of potential readmissions. In general, all the models presented very good results being the Davies-Bouldin index lower than 0.82, where the best index was 0.425.
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Background

Intensive Medicine

In the field of Medicine there is a particular area having as main goal to diagnose and treat patients with serious illnesses and restore them to their previous health condition (Silva et al., 2008), namely Intensive Medicine (IM). This type of patients is usually admitted to intensive care units (ICU). In ICU, the patients can maintain their physiological functions through various life-support devices. In these units, the patients are normally mechanical ventilated and the vital functions are continuously monitored as well as the status of each of the organic systems: neurological, respiratory, hepatic, hematological, cardiovascular and renal. In order to ensure the life and patient condition these functions can be supported through therapeutic plans, clinical procedures or by mechanical means until the patient has again its functions independently (Ramon et al., 2007). An interesting definition of intensive medicine can be: a multidisciplinary area that addresses specifically three moments, the prevention, diagnose and therapy of patients and physiopathology conditions potentially reversible that threaten or present the failure of one or more vital functions (Silva, 2007).

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