A Goal-Driven Evaluation Method Based on Process Mining for Healthcare Processes

Abstract

As a business processes management technique, process mining (PM) has been applied in many domains in the last decade. In healthcare, where most processes are complex, variable, dynamic, and multi-disciplinary in nature, application of this technique is growing, yet challenging. Therefore, this study aims to introduce a goal-driven process evaluation method based on PM for healthcare processes. The proposed method comprises the following steps: defining goals and questions, data extraction, data preprocessing, log and pattern inspection, PM analysis and generating answers to questions, evaluating results, and initiating proposals for process improvements. The proposed method was applied in a case study on the surgery process of a university hospital in Turkey, which revealed for quantitative insights into the process. Bottlenecks and deviations that were crucial for determining measures (e.g., data and performance information) were identified to improve the efficiency of the surgery process. Our initial experience using the proposed method shows that it has potential for initiating process improvements by guiding the use of PM techniques in the healthcare domain.