Monitoring care processes in the gynecologic oncology department

Filip Caron; Jan Vanthienen; Kris Vanhaecht; Erik Van Limbergen; Jochen De Weerdt; Bart Baesens

doi:10.1016/j.compbiomed.2013.10.015

Monitoring care processes in the gynecologic oncology department

Comput Biol Med. 2014 Jan:44:88-96. doi: 10.1016/j.compbiomed.2013.10.015. Epub 2013 Nov 7.

Authors

Filip Caron¹, Jan Vanthienen², Kris Vanhaecht³, Erik Van Limbergen⁴, Jochen De Weerdt⁵, Bart Baesens⁶

Affiliations

¹ Department of Decision Sciences and Information Management, KU Leuven, Naamsestraat 69, 3000 Leuven, Belgium. Electronic address: Filip.Caron@kuleuven.be.
² Department of Public Health and Primary Care, KU Leuven, Kapucijnenvoer 35/7001, 3000 Leuven, Belgium.
³ Department of Public Health and Primary Care, KU Leuven, Kapucijnenvoer 35/7001, 3000 Leuven, Belgium; Western Norway Research Network on Integrated Care, Helse Fonna, Haugesund, Norway; Dutch Institute for Healthcare Improvement (CBO), Churchillaan 11, 3527 GV, Utrecht, The Netherlands.
⁴ Department of Radiation Oncology, University Hospital Gasthuisberg, KU Leuven, Herestraat 49/7003, 3000 Leuven, Belgium.
⁵ Department of Decision Sciences and Information Management, KU Leuven, Naamsestraat 69, 3000 Leuven, Belgium; Information Systems School, Science and Engineering Faculty, Queensland University of Technology, 2 George Street, Brisbane QLD 4000, Australia.
⁶ Department of Decision Sciences and Information Management, KU Leuven, Naamsestraat 69, 3000 Leuven, Belgium; Vlerick Leuven Gent Management School, Vlamingenstraat 38, 3000 Leuven, Belgium; School of Management, University of Southampton, Highfield Southampton, SO17 1 BJ, United Kingdom.

PMID: 24377692
DOI: 10.1016/j.compbiomed.2013.10.015

Abstract

The care processes of healthcare providers are typically considered as human-centric, flexible, evolving, complex and multi-disciplinary. Consequently, acquiring an insight in the dynamics of these care processes can be an arduous task. A novel event log based approach for extracting valuable medical and organizational information on past executions of the care processes is presented in this study. Care processes are analyzed with the help of a preferential set of process mining techniques in order to discover recurring patterns, analyze and characterize process variants and identify adverse medical events.

Keywords: Care processes; Clinical pathways; Health information systems; Healthcare quality; Medical informatics; Process mining.

MeSH terms

Delivery of Health Care*
Female
Genital Diseases, Female / therapy*
Humans
Models, Theoretical*
Neoplasms / therapy*