An analysis of temporal and spatial patterns in Italian hospitalization rates for multiple diagnosis.

In this paper, the Italian hospitalization database provided by the Ministry of Health is analyzed in terms of the temporal and spatial patterns of the hospitalization rates. The database covers the period 2010-2012 and the rates are evaluated for 110 Italian provinces and 18 diagnosis groups as defined by the ICD-9 classification. The analysis is based on a novel model-based clustering approach which enables clustering of spatially registered time series with respect to latent temporal patterns. The clustering result is analyzed to study the spatial distribution of the latent temporal patterns and their trend in order to identify possible critical areas in terms of increasing rates. Additionally, emerging spatial patterns may help common causes driving the hospitalization rates to be identified.