Applying social network miner on medical event logs using handover of work metric

Abstract

The main objective of the paper is to analyze of the behavior of patients (as well as the doctors and surgeons) referring to a private hospital for treatment in Thailand. The main idea is to investigate and scrutinize the relationships of the patients and the relevant physicians during the treatment process based on an event log previously collected from the information system of the hospital. Accordingly, we applied process mining social network analysis approach (in term of the handover of work metric) to discover meaningful relationships and insights between the personnel and patients. One of the major benefits of the applied approach was that we could better track and trace the handover of workload from a doctor/surgeon to another doctor/physician within different medical wards/sections dealing with the patients' disease during the treatment process. Considering the results of the study, can significantly help the hospital's administrators and physicians to monitor and recognize the correct flow of transactions and interactions made between different resources in specify sections/wards. Moreover, the proposed technique enabled us to identify those resources who probably were playing an idle role dealing with patients' needs and medical procedures, while not contributing in the assigned tasks and duties as they should do. Eventually, by contemplating on the findings of the study, the researchers and hospitals' management level can benchmark and improve the handling of the patients' treatment process in a way to lead to increased customer satisfaction toward the quality of the service on work, in a more efficient, effective and timely manner.