A clustering approach to triage categorization in A&E departments

UK accident and emergency departments have to treat patients from arrival to discharge, transfer or admission within four hours. Scientific methods to determine the triage category are important for the hospital to effectively manage resources and staff. In this paper, two clustering algorithms, i.e., K-means and fuzzy c-means clustering, are applied to establish the triage category via data collected by the accident and emergency (A&E) departments. Silhouette coefficients are then employed to evaluate the clustering validity. Finally, the proposed methods are tested on a data set provided by a hospital group in West London. The experimental results show that the established triage category fits the data very well.

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