Process mining in healthcare: a systematised literature review

Abstract

Process mining is a promising approach that turns event logs into valuable insights about processes. One domain amenable to process mining is healthcare, where an enormous amount of data is generated by care processes, but where realistic care models are seldom available. In this paper, we perform a systematised literature review (SdLR) to assess the status of process mining, particularly in healthcare. We first provide an overview of process mining in general, and in healthcare in particular. On the basis of 2371 research publications related to process mining, obtained by querying six relevant search engines in May 2016, we found that the trend of publications in this domain has been growing over the past decade, especially in healthcare. Among the 11 existing literature reviews on process mining selected for further analysis, only two are systematised, and only three relate to healthcare. This paper contributes a systematised review in healthcare that is much needed to fill this void. Important challenges specific to healthcare are identified, and threats to the validity of the results are also discussed.