Process Modeling and Conformance Checking in Healthcare: A COVID-19 Case Study

TL;DR

This paper applies process mining techniques to analyze COVID-19 patient care in an ICU, developing a normative model and assessing adherence to clinical guidelines to improve healthcare quality.

Contribution

It introduces a conformance checking approach for COVID-19 treatment processes, providing a normative model and insights into deviations from guidelines in healthcare.

Findings

Identified main deviations from clinical guidelines.

Provided a normative process model for COVID-19 care.

Shared an open-source BPMN model for healthcare processes.

Abstract

The discipline of process mining has a solid track record of successful applications to the healthcare domain. Within such research space, we conducted a case study related to the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) ward of the Uniklinik Aachen hospital in Germany. The aim of this work is twofold: developing a normative model representing the clinical guidelines for the treatment of COVID-19 patients, and analyzing the adherence of the observed behavior (recorded in the information system of the hospital) to such guidelines. We show that, through conformance checking techniques, it is possible to analyze the care process for COVID-19 patients, highlighting the main deviations from the clinical guidelines. The results provide physicians with useful indications for improving the process and ensuring service quality and patient satisfaction. We share the resulting model as an open-source BPMN file.