Towards Process-of-Care Aware Emergency Department Information Systems: A Clustering Approach to Activity Views Elicitation

The critical role of emergency departments (EDs) as the first point of contact for ill and injured patients has presented significant challenges for the elicitation of detailed process models. Patient complexity has limited the ability of ED information systems (EDIS) in prediction of patient treatment and patient movement. This article formulates a novel approach to building EDIS Activity Views that paves the way for EDIS that can predict patient workflow. The resulting Activity View pertains to “what is being done,” rather than “what experts think is being done.” The approach is based on analysis of data that is routinely recorded during patient treatment. The practical significance of the proposed approach is clinically acceptable, verifiable, and statistically valid process-oriented clusters of ED activities that can be used for targeted process elicitation, thus informing the design of EDIS. Its theoretical significance is in providing the new “middle ground” between existing “soft” and “computational” process elicitation methods.