CGK4PM: Towards a Methodology for the Systematic Generation of Clinical Guideline Process Models and the Utilization of Conformance Checking

Abstract

In the context of improving clinical treatments and certifying clinics, guideline-compliant care has become more important. However, verifying the compliance of treatment procedures with Clinical Guidelines remains difficult, as guidelines are mostly available in non-computer interpretable form and previous computer-interpretable approaches neglect the process perspective with its potential to gain medical insight. In this paper, we present our transformation framework CGK4PM, which addresses the procedural nature of treatment processes and which guides the transformation of clinical explicit and implicit guideline knowledge into process models. The procedural representation enables the use of process mining techniques such as conformance checking to verify guideline compliance and the opportunity to gain insights from complex clinical treatment processes. In collaboration with physicians from Münster University Hospital, the practical applicability of the framework is demonstrated in a case study by transforming the guideline for the treatment of malignant melanoma. The case study findings demonstrate the need for structured and guided transformation and highlight the difficulties in developing a guideline-based process model.