Health intelligence: Discovering the process model using process mining by constructing Start-to-End patient journeys

Australian Public Hospitals are continually engaged in various process improvement activities to improve patient care and to improve hospital efficiency as the demand for service intensifies. As a consequence there are many initiatives within the health sector focusing on gaining insight into the underlying health processes which are assessed for compliance with specified Key Performance Indicators (KPIs). Process Mining is classified as a Business Intelligence (BI) tool. The aim of process mining activities is to gain insight into the underlying process or processes. The fundamental element needed for process mining is a historical event log of a process. Generally, these event logs are easily sourced from Process Aware Information Systems (PAIS). Simulation is widely used by hospitals as a tool to study the complex hospital setting and for prediction. Generally, simulation models are constructed by 'hand'. This paper presents a novel way of deriving event logs for health data in the absence of PAIS. The constructed event log is then used as an input for process mining activities taking advantage of existing process mining algorithms aiding the discovery of knowledge of the underlying processes which leads to Health Intelligence (HI). One such output of process mining activity, presented in this paper, is the discovery of process model for simulation using the derived event log as an input for process mining by constructing start-to-end patient journey. The study was undertaken using data from Flinders Medical Centre to gain insight into patient journeys from the point of admission to the Emergency Department (ED) until the patient is discharged from the hospital.