Personalizing Situated Workflows for Pervasive Healthcare Applications

In this paper, we present an approach where a workflow system is combined with a policy-based framework for the specification and enforcement of policies for healthcare applications. In our approach, workflows are used to capture entitiespsila responsibilities and to assist entities in fulfilling them. The policy-based framework allows us to express authorisation policies to define the rights that entities have in the system, and event-condition-action (ECA) policies that are used to adapt the system to the actual situation. Authorisations will often depend on the context in which patientspsila care takes place, and our policies support predicates that reflect the environment. ECA policies capture events that reflect the current state of the environment and can perform actions to accordingly adapt the workflow execution. We show how the approach can be used for the Edema treatment and how fine-grained authorisation and ECA policies are expressed and used

Healthcare Process Support: Achievements, Challenges, Current Research

Healthcare organizations are facing the challenge of delivering high-quality services to their patients at affordable costs. To tackle this challenge, the Medical Informatics community targets at formalisms for developing decision-support systems (DSSs) based on clinical guidelines. At the same time, business process management (BPM) enables IT support for healthcare processes, e.g., based on workflow technology. By integrating aspects from these two fields, promising perspectives for achieving better healthcare process support arise. The perspectives and limitations of IT support for healthcare processes provided the focus of three Workshops on Process-oriented Information Systems (ProHealth). These were held in conjunction with the International Conference on Business Process Management in 2007-2009. The ProHealth workshops provided a forum wherein challenges, paradigms, and tools for optimized process support in healthcare were debated. Following the success of these workshops, this special issue on process support in healthcare provides extended papers by research groups who contributed multiple times to the ProHealth workshop series. These works address issues pertaining to healthcare process modeling, process-aware healthcare information system, workflow management in healthcare, IT support for guideline implementation and medical decision support, flexibility in healthcare processes, process interoperability in healthcare and healthcare standards, clinical semantics of healthcare processes, healthcare process patterns, best practices for designing healthcare processes, and healthcare process validation, verification, and evaluation

Optimising acute stroke pathways through flexible use of bed capacity: a computer modelling study

BACKGROUND: Optimising capacity along clinical pathways is essential to avoid severe hospital pressure and help ensure best patient outcomes and financial sustainability. Yet, typical approaches, using only average arrival rate and average lengths of stay, are known to underestimate the number of beds required. This study investigates the extent to which averages-based estimates can be complemented by a robust assessment of additional ‘flex capacity’ requirements, to be used at times of peak demand. METHODS: The setting was a major one million resident healthcare system in England, moving towards a centralised stroke pathway. A computer simulation was developed for modelling patient flow along the proposed stroke pathway, accounting for variability in patient arrivals, lengths of stay, and the time taken for transfer processes. The primary outcome measure was flex capacity utilisation over the simulation period. RESULTS: For the hyper-acute, acute, and rehabilitation units respectively, flex capacities of 45%, 45%, and 36% above the averages-based calculation would be required to ensure that only 1% of stroke presentations find the hyper-acute unit full and have to wait. For each unit some amount of flex capacity would be required approximately 30%, 20%, and 18% of the time respectively. CONCLUSIONS: This study demonstrates the importance of appropriately capturing variability within capacity plans, and provides a practical and economical approach which can complement commonly-used averages-based methods. Results of this study have directly informed the healthcare system’s new configuration of stroke services. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12913-022-08433-0

Clinical guidelines as plans: An ontological theory

Clinical guidelines are special types of plans realized by collective agents. We provide an ontological theory of such plans that is designed to support the construction of a framework in which guideline-based information systems can be employed in the management of workflow in health care organizations. The framework we propose allows us to represent in formal terms how clinical guidelines are realized through the actions of are realized through the actions of individuals organized into teams. We provide various levels of implementation representing different levels of conformity on the part of health care organizations. Implementations built in conformity with our framework are marked by two dimensions of flexibility that are designed to make them more likely to be accepted by health care professionals than standard guideline-based management systems. They do justice to the fact 1) that responsibilities within a health care organization are widely shared, and 2) that health care professionals may on different occasions be non-compliant with guidelines for a variety of well justified reasons. The advantage of the framework lies in its built-in flexibility, its sensitivity to clinical context, and its ability to use inference tools based on a robust ontology. One disadvantage lies in its complicated implementation

Using system dynamics for collaborative design: a case study

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>In order to facilitate the collaborative design, system dynamics (SD) with a group modelling approach was used in the early stages of planning a new stroke unit. During six workshops a SD model was created in a multiprofessional group.</p> <p>Aim</p> <p>To explore to which extent and how the use of system dynamics contributed to the collaborative design process.</p> <p>Method</p> <p>A case study was conducted using several data sources.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>SD supported a collaborative design, by facilitating an explicit description of stroke care process, a dialogue and a joint understanding. The construction of the model obliged the group to conceptualise the stroke care and experimentation with the model gave the opportunity to reflect on care.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>SD facilitated the collaborative design process and should be integrated in the early stages of the design process as a quality improvement tool.</p

What Role Can Process Mining Play in Recurrent Clinical Guidelines Issues? A Position Paper

[EN] In the age of Evidence-Based Medicine, Clinical Guidelines (CGs) are recognized to be an indispensable tool to support physicians in their daily clinical practice. Medical Informatics is expected to play a relevant role in facilitating diffusion and adoption of CGs. However, the past pioneering approaches, often fragmented in many disciplines, did not lead to solutions that are actually exploited in hospitals. Process Mining for Healthcare (PM4HC) is an emerging discipline gaining the interest of healthcare experts, and seems able to deal with many important issues in representing CGs. In this position paper, we briefly describe the story and the state-of-the-art of CGs, and the efforts and results of the past approaches of medical informatics. Then, we describe PM4HC, and we answer questions like how can PM4HC cope with this challenge? Which role does PM4HC play and which rules should be employed for the PM4HC scientific community?Gatta, R.; Vallati, M.; Fernández Llatas, C.; Martinez-Millana, A.; Orini, S.; Sacchi, L.; Lenkowicz, J.... (2020). What Role Can Process Mining Play in Recurrent Clinical Guidelines Issues? A Position Paper. International Journal of Environmental research and Public Health (Online). 17(18):1-19. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph17186616S1191718Guyatt, G. (1992). Evidence-Based Medicine. JAMA, 268(17), 2420. doi:10.1001/jama.1992.03490170092032Hripcsak, G., Ludemann, P., Pryor, T. A., Wigertz, O. B., & Clayton, P. D. (1994). Rationale for the Arden Syntax. Computers and Biomedical Research, 27(4), 291-324. doi:10.1006/cbmr.1994.1023Peleg, M. (2013). Computer-interpretable clinical guidelines: A methodological review. Journal of Biomedical Informatics, 46(4), 744-763. doi:10.1016/j.jbi.2013.06.009Van de Velde, S., Heselmans, A., Delvaux, N., Brandt, L., Marco-Ruiz, L., Spitaels, D., … Flottorp, S. (2018). A systematic review of trials evaluating success factors of interventions with computerised clinical decision support. Implementation Science, 13(1). doi:10.1186/s13012-018-0790-1Rawson, T. M., Moore, L. S. P., Hernandez, B., Charani, E., Castro-Sanchez, E., Herrero, P., … Holmes, A. H. (2017). A systematic review of clinical decision support systems for antimicrobial management: are we failing to investigate these interventions appropriately? Clinical Microbiology and Infection, 23(8), 524-532. doi:10.1016/j.cmi.2017.02.028Greenes, R. A., Bates, D. W., Kawamoto, K., Middleton, B., Osheroff, J., & Shahar, Y. (2018). Clinical decision support models and frameworks: Seeking to address research issues underlying implementation successes and failures. Journal of Biomedical Informatics, 78, 134-143. doi:10.1016/j.jbi.2017.12.005Garcia, C. dos S., Meincheim, A., Faria Junior, E. R., Dallagassa, M. R., Sato, D. M. V., Carvalho, D. R., … Scalabrin, E. E. (2019). Process mining techniques and applications – A systematic mapping study. Expert Systems with Applications, 133, 260-295. doi:10.1016/j.eswa.2019.05.003Bhargava, A., Kim, T., Quine, D. B., & Hauser, R. G. (2019). A 20-Year Evaluation of LOINC in the United States’ Largest Integrated Health System. Archives of Pathology & Laboratory Medicine, 144(4), 478-484. doi:10.5858/arpa.2019-0055-oaLee, D., de Keizer, N., Lau, F., & Cornet, R. (2014). Literature review of SNOMED CT use. Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association, 21(e1), e11-e19. doi:10.1136/amiajnl-2013-001636TROTTI, A., COLEVAS, A., SETSER, A., RUSCH, V., JAQUES, D., BUDACH, V., … COLEMAN, C. (2003). CTCAE v3.0: development of a comprehensive grading system for the adverse effects of cancer treatment. Seminars in Radiation Oncology, 13(3), 176-181. doi:10.1016/s1053-4296(03)00031-6Daniel, C., & Kalra, D. (2019). Clinical Research Informatics: Contributions from 2018. Yearbook of Medical Informatics, 28(01), 203-205. doi:10.1055/s-0039-1677921Marco-Ruiz, L., Pedrinaci, C., Maldonado, J. A., Panziera, L., Chen, R., & Bellika, J. G. (2016). Publication, discovery and interoperability of Clinical Decision Support Systems: A Linked Data approach. Journal of Biomedical Informatics, 62, 243-264. doi:10.1016/j.jbi.2016.07.011Marcos, C., González-Ferrer, A., Peleg, M., & Cavero, C. (2015). Solving the interoperability challenge of a distributed complex patient guidance system: a data integrator based on HL7’s Virtual Medical Record standard. Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association, 22(3), 587-599. doi:10.1093/jamia/ocv003Wulff, A., Haarbrandt, B., Tute, E., Marschollek, M., Beerbaum, P., & Jack, T. (2018). An interoperable clinical decision-support system for early detection of SIRS in pediatric intensive care using openEHR. Artificial Intelligence in Medicine, 89, 10-23. doi:10.1016/j.artmed.2018.04.012Chen, C., Chen, K., Hsu, C.-Y., Chiu, W.-T., & Li, Y.-C. (Jack). (2010). A guideline-based decision support for pharmacological treatment can improve the quality of hyperlipidemia management. Computer Methods and Programs in Biomedicine, 97(3), 280-285. doi:10.1016/j.cmpb.2009.12.004Anani, N., Mazya, M. V., Chen, R., Prazeres Moreira, T., Bill, O., Ahmed, N., … Koch, S. (2017). Applying openEHR’s Guideline Definition Language to the SITS international stroke treatment registry: a European retrospective observational study. BMC Medical Informatics and Decision Making, 17(1). doi:10.1186/s12911-016-0401-5Eddy, D. M. (1982). Clinical Policies and the Quality of Clinical Practice. New England Journal of Medicine, 307(6), 343-347. doi:10.1056/nejm198208053070604Guyatt, G. H. (1990). Then-of-1 Randomized Controlled Trial: Clinical Usefulness. Annals of Internal Medicine, 112(4), 293. doi:10.7326/0003-4819-112-4-293CHALMERS, I. (1993). The Cochrane Collaboration: Preparing, Maintaining, and Disseminating Systematic Reviews of the Effects of Health Care. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 703(1 Doing More Go), 156-165. doi:10.1111/j.1749-6632.1993.tb26345.xWoolf, S. H., Grol, R., Hutchinson, A., Eccles, M., & Grimshaw, J. (1999). Clinical guidelines: Potential benefits, limitations, and harms of clinical guidelines. BMJ, 318(7182), 527-530. doi:10.1136/bmj.318.7182.527Grading quality of evidence and strength of recommendations. (2004). BMJ, 328(7454), 1490. doi:10.1136/bmj.328.7454.1490Guyatt, G. H., Oxman, A. D., Vist, G. E., Kunz, R., Falck-Ytter, Y., Alonso-Coello, P., & Schünemann, H. J. (2008). GRADE: an emerging consensus on rating quality of evidence and strength of recommendations. BMJ, 336(7650), 924-926. doi:10.1136/bmj.39489.470347.adHill, J., Bullock, I., & Alderson, P. (2011). A Summary of the Methods That the National Clinical Guideline Centre Uses to Produce Clinical Guidelines for the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence. Annals of Internal Medicine, 154(11), 752. doi:10.7326/0003-4819-154-11-201106070-00007Qaseem, A. (2012). Guidelines International Network: Toward International Standards for Clinical Practice Guidelines. Annals of Internal Medicine, 156(7), 525. doi:10.7326/0003-4819-156-7-201204030-00009Rosenfeld, R. M., Nnacheta, L. C., & Corrigan, M. D. (2015). Clinical Consensus Statement Development Manual. Otolaryngology–Head and Neck Surgery, 153(2_suppl), S1-S14. doi:10.1177/0194599815601394De Boeck, K., Castellani, C., & Elborn, J. S. (2014). Medical consensus, guidelines, and position papers: A policy for the ECFS. Journal of Cystic Fibrosis, 13(5), 495-498. doi:10.1016/j.jcf.2014.06.012Clinical Practical Guidelineshttp://www.openclinical.org/guidelines.htmlHaynes, A. B., Weiser, T. G., Berry, W. R., Lipsitz, S. R., Breizat, A.-H. S., Dellinger, E. P., … Gawande, A. A. (2009). A Surgical Safety Checklist to Reduce Morbidity and Mortality in a Global Population. New England Journal of Medicine, 360(5), 491-499. doi:10.1056/nejmsa0810119Grigg, E. (2015). Smarter Clinical Checklists. Anesthesia & Analgesia, 121(2), 570-573. doi:10.1213/ane.0000000000000352Hales, B., Terblanche, M., Fowler, R., & Sibbald, W. (2007). Development of medical checklists for improved quality of patient care. International Journal for Quality in Health Care, 20(1), 22-30. doi:10.1093/intqhc/mzm062Greenfield, S. (2017). Clinical Practice Guidelines. JAMA, 317(6), 594. doi:10.1001/jama.2016.19969Vegting, I. L., van Beneden, M., Kramer, M. H. H., Thijs, A., Kostense, P. J., & Nanayakkara, P. W. B. (2012). How to save costs by reducing unnecessary testing: Lean thinking in clinical practice. European Journal of Internal Medicine, 23(1), 70-75. doi:10.1016/j.ejim.2011.07.003Drummond, M. (2016). Clinical Guidelines: A NICE Way to Introduce Cost-Effectiveness Considerations? Value in Health, 19(5), 525-530. doi:10.1016/j.jval.2016.04.020Prior, M., Guerin, M., & Grimmer-Somers, K. (2008). The effectiveness of clinical guideline implementation strategies - a synthesis of systematic review findings. Journal of Evaluation in Clinical Practice, 14(5), 888-897. doi:10.1111/j.1365-2753.2008.01014.xWatts, C. G., Dieng, M., Morton, R. L., Mann, G. J., Menzies, S. W., & Cust, A. E. (2014). Clinical practice guidelines for identification, screening and follow-up of individuals at high risk of primary cutaneous melanoma: a systematic review. British Journal of Dermatology, 172(1), 33-47. doi:10.1111/bjd.13403Woolf, S., Schünemann, H. J., Eccles, M. P., Grimshaw, J. M., & Shekelle, P. (2012). Developing clinical practice guidelines: types of evidence and outcomes; values and economics, synthesis, grading, and presentation and deriving recommendations. Implementation Science, 7(1). doi:10.1186/1748-5908-7-61Legido-Quigley, H., Panteli, D., Brusamento, S., Knai, C., Saliba, V., Turk, E., … Busse, R. (2012). Clinical guidelines in the European Union: Mapping the regulatory basis, development, quality control, implementation and evaluation across member states. Health Policy, 107(2-3), 146-156. doi:10.1016/j.healthpol.2012.08.004Rashidian, A., Eccles, M. P., & Russell, I. (2008). Falling on stony ground? A qualitative study of implementation of clinical guidelines’ prescribing recommendations in primary care. Health Policy, 85(2), 148-161. doi:10.1016/j.healthpol.2007.07.011Yang, W.-S., & Hwang, S.-Y. (2006). A process-mining framework for the detection of healthcare fraud and abuse. Expert Systems with Applications, 31(1), 56-68. doi:10.1016/j.eswa.2005.09.003Kose, I., Gokturk, M., & Kilic, K. (2015). An interactive machine-learning-based electronic fraud and abuse detection system in healthcare insurance. Applied Soft Computing, 36, 283-299. doi:10.1016/j.asoc.2015.07.018Pryor, T. A., Gardner, R. M., Clayton, P. D., & Warner, H. R. (1983). The HELP system. Journal of Medical Systems, 7(2), 87-102. doi:10.1007/bf00995116Shahar, Y., Miksch, S., & Johnson, P. (1998). The Asgaard project: a task-specific framework for the application and critiquing of time-oriented clinical guidelines. Artificial Intelligence in Medicine, 14(1-2), 29-51. doi:10.1016/s0933-3657(98)00015-3Boxwala, A. A., Peleg, M., Tu, S., Ogunyemi, O., Zeng, Q. T., Wang, D., … Shortliffe, E. H. (2004). GLIF3: a representation format for sharable computer-interpretable clinical practice guidelines. Journal of Biomedical Informatics, 37(3), 147-161. doi:10.1016/j.jbi.2004.04.002Terenziani, P., Molino, G., & Torchio, M. (2001). A modular approach for representing and executing clinical guidelines. Artificial Intelligence in Medicine, 23(3), 249-276. doi:10.1016/s0933-3657(01)00087-2Sutton, D. R., & Fox, J. (2003). The Syntax and Semantics of the PROformaGuideline Modeling Language. Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association, 10(5), 433-443. doi:10.1197/jamia.m1264Musen, M. A., Tu, S. W., Das, A. K., & Shahar, Y. (1996). EON: A Component-Based Approach to Automation of Protocol-Directed Therapy. Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association, 3(6), 367-388. doi:10.1136/jamia.1996.97084511Ciccarese, P., Caffi, E., Quaglini, S., & Stefanelli, M. (2005). Architectures and tools for innovative Health Information Systems: The Guide Project. International Journal of Medical Informatics, 74(7-8), 553-562. doi:10.1016/j.ijmedinf.2005.02.001Shiffman, R. N., & Greenes, R. A. (1994). Improving Clinical Guidelines with Logic and Decision-table Techniques. Medical Decision Making, 14(3), 245-254. doi:10.1177/0272989x9401400306Peleg, M., Tu, S., Bury, J., Ciccarese, P., Fox, J., Greenes, R. A., … Stefanelli, M. (2003). Comparing Computer-interpretable Guideline Models: A Case-study Approach. Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association, 10(1), 52-68. doi:10.1197/jamia.m1135Karadimas, H., Ebrahiminia, V., & Lepage, E. (2018). User-defined functions in the Arden Syntax: An extension proposal. Artificial Intelligence in Medicine, 92, 103-110. doi:10.1016/j.artmed.2015.11.003Peleg, M., Keren, S., & Denekamp, Y. (2008). Mapping computerized clinical guidelines to electronic medical records: Knowledge-data ontological mapper (KDOM). Journal of Biomedical Informatics, 41(1), 180-201. doi:10.1016/j.jbi.2007.05.003German, E., Leibowitz, A., & Shahar, Y. (2009). An architecture for linking medical decision-support applications to clinical databases and its evaluation. Journal of Biomedical Informatics, 42(2), 203-218. doi:10.1016/j.jbi.2008.10.007Marcos, M., Maldonado, J. A., Martínez-Salvador, B., Boscá, D., & Robles, M. (2013). Interoperability of clinical decision-support systems and electronic health records using archetypes: A case study in clinical trial eligibility. Journal of Biomedical Informatics, 46(4), 676-689. doi:10.1016/j.jbi.2013.05.004Marco-Ruiz, L., Moner, D., Maldonado, J. A., Kolstrup, N., & Bellika, J. G. (2015). Archetype-based data warehouse environment to enable the reuse of electronic health record data. International Journal of Medical Informatics, 84(9), 702-714. doi:10.1016/j.ijmedinf.2015.05.016Gooch, P., & Roudsari, A. (2011). Computerization of workflows, guidelines, and care pathways: a review of implementation challenges for process-oriented health information systems. Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association, 18(6), 738-748. doi:10.1136/amiajnl-2010-000033Quaglini, S., Stefanelli, M., Cavallini, A., Micieli, G., Fassino, C., & Mossa, C. (2000). Guideline-based careflow systems. Artificial Intelligence in Medicine, 20(1), 5-22. doi:10.1016/s0933-3657(00)00050-6Schadow, G., Russler, D. C., & McDonald, C. J. (2001). Conceptual alignment of electronic health record data with guideline and workflow knowledge. International Journal of Medical Informatics, 64(2-3), 259-274. doi:10.1016/s1386-5056(01)00196-4González-Ferrer, A., ten Teije, A., Fdez-Olivares, J., & Milian, K. (2013). Automated generation of patient-tailored electronic care pathways by translating computer-interpretable guidelines into hierarchical task networks. Artificial Intelligence in Medicine, 57(2), 91-109. doi:10.1016/j.artmed.2012.08.008Shabo, A., Parimbelli, E., Quaglini, S., Napolitano, C., & Peleg, M. (2016). Interplay between Clinical Guidelines and Organizational Workflow Systems. Methods of Information in Medicine, 55(06), 488-494. doi:10.3414/me16-01-0006Mulyar, N., van der Aalst, W. M. P., & Peleg, M. (2007). A Pattern-based Analysis of Clinical Computer-interpretable Guideline Modeling Languages. Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association, 14(6), 781-787. doi:10.1197/jamia.m2389Grando, M. A., Glasspool, D., & Fox, J. (2012). A formal approach to the analysis of clinical computer-interpretable guideline modeling languages. Artificial Intelligence in Medicine, 54(1), 1-13. doi:10.1016/j.artmed.2011.07.001Kaiser, K., & Marcos, M. (2015). Leveraging workflow control patterns in the domain of clinical practice guidelines. BMC Medical Informatics and Decision Making, 16(1). doi:10.1186/s12911-016-0253-zMartínez-Salvador, B., & Marcos, M. (2016). Supporting the Refinement of Clinical Process Models to Computer-Interpretable Guideline Models. Business & Information Systems Engineering, 58(5), 355-366. doi:10.1007/s12599-016-0443-3Decision Model and Notation Version 1.0https://www.omg.org/spec/DMN/1.0Ghasemi, M., & Amyot, D. (2016). Process mining in healthcare: a systematised literature review. International Journal of Electronic Healthcare, 9(1), 60. doi:10.1504/ijeh.2016.078745Rebuge, Á., & Ferreira, D. R. (2012). Business process analysis in healthcare environments: A methodology based on process mining. Information Systems, 37(2), 99-116. doi:10.1016/j.is.2011.01.003Rovani, M., Maggi, F. M., de Leoni, M., & van der Aalst, W. M. P. (2015). Declarative process mining in healthcare. Expert Systems with Applications, 42(23), 9236-9251. doi:10.1016/j.eswa.2015.07.040Rojas, E., Munoz-Gama, J., Sepúlveda, M., & Capurro, D. (2016). Process mining in healthcare: A literature review. Journal of Biomedical Informatics, 61, 224-236. doi:10.1016/j.jbi.2016.04.007Lenkowicz, J., Gatta, R., Masciocchi, C., Casà, C., Cellini, F., Damiani, A., … Valentini, V. (2018). Assessing the conformity to clinical guidelines in oncology. Management Decision, 56(10), 2172-2186. doi:10.1108/md-09-2017-0906Fernández-Llatas, C., Benedi, J.-M., García-Gómez, J., & Traver, V. (2013). Process Mining for Individualized Behavior Modeling Using Wireless Tracking in Nursing Homes. Sensors, 13(11), 15434-15451. doi:10.3390/s131115434Qu, G., Liu, Z., Cui, S., & Tang, J. (2013). Study on Self-Adaptive Clinical Pathway Decision Support System Based on Case-Based Reasoning. Frontier and Future Development of Information Technology in Medicine and Education, 969-978. doi:10.1007/978-94-007-7618-0_95Van de Velde, S., Roshanov, P., Kortteisto, T., Kunnamo, I., Aertgeerts, B., Vandvik, P. O., & Flottorp, S. (2015). Tailoring implementation strategies for evidence-based recommendations using computerised clinical decision support systems: protocol for the development of the GUIDES tools. Implementation Science, 11(1). doi:10.1186/s13012-016-0393-

Information Systems and Healthcare XXXIV: Clinical Knowledge Management Systems—Literature Review and Research Issues for Information Systems

Knowledge Management (KM) has emerged as a possible solution to many of the challenges facing U.S. and international healthcare systems. These challenges include concerns regarding the safety and quality of patient care, critical inefficiency, disparate technologies and information standards, rapidly rising costs and clinical information overload. In this paper, we focus on clinical knowledge management systems (CKMS) research. The objectives of the paper are to evaluate the current state of knowledge management systems diffusion in the clinical setting, assess the present status and focus of CKMS research efforts, and identify research gaps and opportunities for future work across the medical informatics and information systems disciplines. The study analyzes the literature along two dimensions: (1) the knowledge management processes of creation, capture, transfer, and application, and (2) the clinical processes of diagnosis, treatment, monitoring and prognosis. The study reveals that the vast majority of CKMS research has been conducted by the medical and health informatics communities. Information systems (IS) researchers have played a limited role in past CKMS research. Overall, the results indicate that there is considerable potential for IS researchers to contribute their expertise to the improvement of clinical process through technology-based KM approaches

A modular, open-source information extraction framework for identifying clinical concepts and processes of care in clinical narratives

In this thesis, a synthesis is presented of the knowledge models required by clinical informa- tion systems that provide decision support for longitudinal processes of care. Qualitative research techniques and thematic analysis are novelly applied to a systematic review of the literature on the challenges in implementing such systems, leading to the development of an original conceptual framework. The thesis demonstrates how these process-oriented systems make use of a knowledge base derived from workflow models and clinical guidelines, and argues that one of the major barriers to implementation is the need to extract explicit and implicit information from diverse resources in order to construct the knowledge base. Moreover, concepts in both the knowledge base and in the electronic health record (EHR) must be mapped to a common ontological model. However, the majority of clinical guideline information remains in text form, and much of the useful clinical information residing in the EHR resides in the free text fields of progress notes and laboratory reports. In this thesis, it is shown how natural language processing and information extraction techniques provide a means to identify and formalise the knowledge components required by the knowledge base. Original contributions are made in the development of lexico-syntactic patterns and the use of external domain knowledge resources to tackle a variety of information extraction tasks in the clinical domain, such as recognition of clinical concepts, events, temporal relations, term disambiguation and abbreviation expansion. Methods are developed for adapting existing tools and resources in the biomedical domain to the processing of clinical texts, and approaches to improving the scalability of these tools are proposed and evalu- ated. These tools and techniques are then combined in the creation of a novel approach to identifying processes of care in the clinical narrative. It is demonstrated that resolution of coreferential and anaphoric relations as narratively and temporally ordered chains provides a means to extract linked narrative events and processes of care from clinical notes. Coreference performance in discharge summaries and progress notes is largely dependent on correct identification of protagonist chains (patient, clinician, family relation), pronominal resolution, and string matching that takes account of experiencer, temporal, spatial, and anatomical context; whereas for laboratory reports additional, external domain knowledge is required. The types of external knowledge and their effects on system performance are identified and evaluated. Results are compared against existing systems for solving these tasks and are found to improve on them, or to approach the performance of recently reported, state-of-the- art systems. Software artefacts developed in this research have been made available as open-source components within the General Architecture for Text Engineering framework

Gaining insight from patient journey data using process-oriented analysis approach

Hospitals are continually struggling to cater for the increasing demand for inpatient services. This is due to increased population, aging, and the rising incidence of chronic diseases associated with modern life. The high demand for hospital services leads to unpredictable bed availability, longer waiting period for acute admission, difficulties in keeping planned admission, stressed hospital staff, undesirable patient and family experience, as well as unclear long term impact on health care capacity. This study aims to derive some correlation between various factors contributing to ward occupancy rate and operation efficiency. The aim is also to discover the inpatient flow process model proposing to use process mining techniques combined with data analysis to depict the relationships among inpatients, wards and Length of Stay (LOS) in an effort to gain insight into factors that could be focused to relieve access block. Open source process mining software - ProM is used for this study. The study is done in collaboration with Flinders Medical Centre (FMC) using data from their Patient Journey Database as case study