3 IRCCS Fondazione "C. Mondino", Pavia, Italy - on behalf of the Stroke Unit Network (SUN) collaborating centers Abstract. In a competitive healthcare market, hospitals have to focus on ways to deliver high quality care while at the same time reducing costs. To accomplish this goal, hospital managers need a thorough understand- ing of the actual processes. Process mining can be used to extract process related information (e.g., process models) from data. This process infor- mation can be exploited to understand and redesign processes to become efficient high quality processes. Process analysis and redesign can take advantage of Case Based Reasoning techniques. In this paper, we present a framework that applies process mining and case retrieval techniques, relying on a novel distance measure, to stroke management processes. Specifically, the goal of the framework is the one of analyzing the quality of stroke management processes, in order to verify: (i) whether different patient categories are differently treated (as expected), and (ii) whether hospitals of different levels (defined by the absence/presence of specific resources) actually implement different processes (as they auto-declare). Some first experimental results are pre- sented and discussed. Healthcare institutions are increasingly facing pressure to reduce costs, while at the same time improving the quality of care. In order to reach such a goal, healthcare administrators and expert physicians need to evaluate the services the institution provides. Service evaluation requires to analyze medical processes, which are often automated and logged by means of the workflow technology. Process analysis (PA) covers functions of simulation and diagnosis of pro- cesses. While simulation can support performance issues evaluation, diagno- sis can highlight e.g., similarities, differences, and adaptation/redesign needs. Indeed, the existence of different patients categories, or of local resource con- straints, can make differences between process instances necessary, and process adaptation compulsory (even when the medical process implements a well-accepted clinical guideline). Proper PA techniques are strongly needed when
['Stefania Montani', 'Giorgio Leonardi', 'Silvana Quaglini', 'Anna Cavallini', 'Giuseppe Micieli']
Mining and Retrieving Medical Processes to Assess the Quality of Care