Preparation

Understanding domain

If it is the first time that the process miner works on this clinical domain, it is critical to understand the process and the purpose of the analysis.

The health professional should be able to explain the main process, and particularities that would like to research on, and to represent them as workflow resource patterns, which aim is to capture the various ways in which resources are represented and utilized in the workflow.

Examples of these resources may be:

Figure 3. Resources

Identifying data

In the first session carried out between the process miner, and the clinician, it may be needed that the IT professional in charge of the management of the Hospital Information System and any other data source at the hospital, take part too.

It is not mandatory to have an IT professional in this first session, but it is recommended to understand what kind of data is needed and in which format.

The IT professional needs to identify: ID, activity name, and start timestamp. End timestamp is desirable although not mandatory. Additional information that enriches the process is also welcome: age, gender, tests, costs, diagnosis, PROMs, PREMs, PRIMs ICHOM sets…

First data rodeo

Once the process miner has understood the process and data is available, process miner models it as an IPI through the research phase, to look for the best views that answer the health professional's questions.

In the data rodeo sessions take place at least a process miner, and a health professional.

The main objective in this first contact of professionals with IPM is to show to health professionals the potential of using Process Mining in their area.

This first data rodeo is usually very short and generally provides throw-away process indicators that are used as the basis for the indicators that are generated in subsequent iterative phases.

The most effective way to implement a data rodeo in this phase is to carry out short face-to-face data rodeo sessions with managers, clinicians, IT professionals, and the process miner.

To avoid data privacy issues, the meeting can take place in the health organization premises with anonymous data. The computer used to do the data rodeo usually belongs to the process miner, because has IPMT requirements already installed, in which case data should be deleted from the computer after each session.

This first data rodeo should finish with a view of the data to demonstrate what process mining technologies can offer them.

Figure 4. Preparation phase