Association Rules Mining for Hospital Readmission: A Case Study

Nor Hamizah Miswan, ‘Ismat Mohd Sulaiman, Chee Seng Chan and Chong Guan Ng
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Nor Hamizah Miswan: Department of Artificial Intelligence, Faculty of Computer Science and Information Technology, University of Malaya, Kuala Lumpur 50603, Malaysia
‘Ismat Mohd Sulaiman: Health Informatics Centre, Planning Division, Ministry of Health Malaysia, Putrajaya 62590, Malaysia
Chee Seng Chan: Department of Artificial Intelligence, Faculty of Computer Science and Information Technology, University of Malaya, Kuala Lumpur 50603, Malaysia
Chong Guan Ng: Department of Psychological Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, University of Malaya, Kuala Lumpur 50603, Malaysia

Mathematics, 2021, vol. 9, issue 21, 1-21

Abstract: As an indicator of healthcare quality and performance, hospital readmission incurs major costs for healthcare systems worldwide. Understanding the relationships between readmission factors, such as input features and readmission length, is challenging following intricate hospital readmission procedures. This study discovered the significant correlation between potential readmission factors (threshold of various settings for readmission length) and basic demographic variables. Association rule mining (ARM), particularly the Apriori algorithm, was utilised to extract the hidden input variable patterns and relationships among admitted patients by generating supervised learning rules. The mined rules were categorised into two outcomes to comprehend readmission data; (i) the rules associated with various readmission length and (ii) several expert-validated variables related to basic demographics (gender, race, and age group). The extracted rules proved useful to facilitate decision-making and resource preparation to minimise patient readmission.

Keywords: Apriori algorithm; association rules mining (ARM); hospital readmission (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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