Clustering patient mobility patterns to assess effectiveness of health-service delivery

Background: Analysis of patient mobility in a country not only gives an idea of how the health-care system works, but also can be a guideline to determine the quality of health care and health disparity among regions. Even though determination of patient movement is important, it is not often realized that patient mobility could have a unique pattern beyond health-related endowments (e.g., facilities, medical staff). This study therefore addresses the following research question: Is there a way to identify regions with similar patterns using spatio-temporal distribution of patient mobility? The aim of the paper is to answer this question and improve a classification method that is useful for populous countries like Turkey that have many administrative areas.