Final Assign 00

Assignment: K-Means Clustering

What is "k-means clustering," and how might it help healthcare administration leaders in their health services organization?

One of the more common methods of clustering is the use of k-means, where "k" is the number of clusters that are meant to describe the population of interest. For example, what if you were interested in segmenting patients based on satisfaction levels? K-means clustering could be used in the same way to help describe this given population.

This technique might assist leaders in determining what characteristics need to be considered in order to study crime and unemployment. In striving to address the problem, k-means clustering is an effective tool for leadership to consider.

For this Assignment, review the resources for this week, and examine the k-means clustering approach. Reflect on how you might apply this approach to an issue or challenge in a health services organization. Then, complete the problems for the Assignment.

For Chapter 17, problem 21, you will need to download the file P17_21.xlsx (attached)

The Assignment: (5 pages)

· Complete Problem 21 on page 938 of your course text.

QUESTION

Using the data in the file P17_21.xlsx, the same data as in Problem 19, use the method in Example 17.4 to find four clusters of cities. Note that there are two text variables, Crime_Trend and Unemployment_Threat. You can ignore them for this problem. Write a short report about the clusters you find. Does the clustering make sense? Can you provide descriptive, meaningful names for the clusters?

By Day 7

Submit your answers and embedded analysis as a Microsoft Word management report.