Process Mining Using Electronic Health Records Data - Quo Vadis? Reflections from Observing Nurses' Activities and Data Registration Behavior

Abstract

Process mining leverages process execution data to better understand and improve operational processes. In hospitals, data from the Electronic Health Records (EHR) system that supports their daily operations is often used as input data for process mining. As limitations of EHR data in terms of data quality have also been highlighted in literature, it remains an open question how well EHR data reflects how work actually gets done in a care process. Against this background, this paper reports on the outcomes of an observation study at a Belgian hospital. In particular, the activities that nurses perform have been observed, as well as their data registration behavior. From the findings, it follows that EHR data will provide a highly fragmented and inaccurate view of how nursing work gets done. This constitutes a basis for reflection upon the extent to which EHR data is a truthful basis for process mining.