Using a Multi-Level Process Comparison for Process Change Analysis in Cancer Pathways

Angelina Prima Kurniati, Ciarán McInerney, Kieran Zucker, Geoff Hall, David Hogg and Owen Johnson
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Angelina Prima Kurniati: School of Computing, University of Leeds, Leeds LS2 9JT, UK
Ciarán McInerney: School of Computing, University of Leeds, Leeds LS2 9JT, UK
Kieran Zucker: School of Medicine, University of Leeds, Leeds Teaching Hospitals Trust, Leeds LS1 3EX, UK
Geoff Hall: School of Medicine, University of Leeds, Leeds Teaching Hospitals Trust, Leeds LS1 3EX, UK
David Hogg: School of Computing, University of Leeds, Leeds LS2 9JT, UK
Owen Johnson: School of Computing, University of Leeds, Leeds LS2 9JT, UK

IJERPH, 2020, vol. 17, issue 19, 1-16

Abstract: The area of process change over time is a particular concern in healthcare, where patterns of care emerge and evolve in response to individual patient needs. We propose a structured approach to analyse process change over time that is suitable for the complex domain of healthcare. Our approach applies a qualitative process comparison at three levels of abstraction: a holistic perspective (process model), a middle-level perspective (trace), and a fine-grained detail (activity). Our aim was to detect change points, localise and characterise the change, and unravel/understand the process evolution. We illustrate the approach using a case study of cancer pathways in Leeds where we found evidence of change points identified at multiple levels. In this paper, we extend our study by analysing the miners used in process discovery and providing a deeper analysis of the activity of investigation in trace and activity levels. In the experiment, we show that this qualitative approach provides a useful understanding of process change over time. Examining change at three levels provides confirmatory evidence of process change where perspectives agree, while contradictory evidence can lead to focused discussions with domain experts. This approach should be of interest to others dealing with processes that undergo complex change over time.

Keywords: process mining; cancer pathways; process change; concept drift; multi-level process comparison (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
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