3. Case study
The diversification and expansion of specialized laboratories in Tehran has led to increased activity in this field. According to the statistics released by the Iranian Health Reference Laboratory, the volume of laboratory services market in Tehran is 16.6% of the total share of the country, which represents a significant contribution. The share of medical diagnostic laboratories Tehran in the public and private sectors is 29% and 71%, respectively. Considering the importance of the private sector, the statistical population of this study consists of 25 private medical diagnostic laboratories in Tehran province.
After evaluating the performance of 25 units of laboratory, based on the performance scores by Ghafari Someh et al. 8, the laboratory units were divide into three clusters by using K-means method. The results show that 10 laboratory units belong to the first group, 5 laboratory units belong to the second group and 10 laboratory units belong to the third group. Finally, the 10 laboratory units belonging to the first group make up a laboratory network and 5 laboratory units in the second group use strategic planning to join the network, and the 10 laboratory units in the third group have no chance of joining the network and can be deleted. Table 2 and Figure 3 show clustering of 25 laboratory units using the k-means method.
Table2. Clustering 25 medical diagnostic laboratories