Analyzing Medical Emergency Processes with Process Mining: The Stroke Case

Abstract

Medical emergencies are one of the most critical processes that occurs in a hospital. The creation of adequate and timely triage protocols, can make the difference between the life and death of the patient. One of the most critical emergency care protocols is the stroke case. This disease demands an accurate and quick diagnosis for ensuring an immediate treatment in order to limit or even, avoid, the undesired cognitive decline. The aim of this paper is perform an analysis of how Process Mining techniques can support health professionals in the interactive analysis of emergency processes considering critical timing of Stroke, using a Question Driven methodology. To demonstrate the possibilities of Process Mining in the characterization of the emergency process, we have used a real log with 9046 emergency episodes from 2145 stroke patients that occurred from January of 2010 to June of 2017. Our results demonstrate how Process Mining technology can highlight the differences of the stroke patient flow in emergency, supporting professionals in the better understanding and improvement of quality of care.