Data analysis for healthcare: a case study in blood donation center analysis

Abstract

With increasing emphasis on using data analysis in decision support in healthcare organizations, we describe an example in collecting and analyzing data for a health organization. In particular, we describe the process in identifying the best location for Hong Kong Red Cross Blood Transfusion Service to establish a new blood donation center based on past donation data. Our analysis is divided into two parts. The first part focuses on data analysis which studies the context of data itself. We have identified the relationship among donor's age, gender, blood type and frequency of donation, the relationship between donation frequencies and distance from the donation center, the characteristic of different donation center, and the trend of blood donation. The second part focuses on new center analysis which applies the findings derived from the first part in identifying the best location for establishing a new blood donation center.