Social influence and neighbourhood effects in the health care market

This work is intended to analyze the market for health care through a computational approach based on unsupervised neural networks. The paper provides a theoretical framework for a computational model that relies on Kohonen's self organizing maps (SOM), arranged into two layers: in the upper layer the competition dynamics of health care providers is modelled, whereas in the lower level patients behaviour is monitored. Interactions take place both vertically between the layers (in a bi-directional way), and horizontally, inside each level, exploiting neighbourhood features of SOM: signals move vertically from hospitals to patients and vice-versa, but they also spread out sideward, from patient to patient, and from hospital to hospital. The result is a new approach addressing the issue of hospital behaviour and demand mechanism modelling, which conjugates a robust theoretical implementation together with an instrument of deep graphical impact.