ArticleTechnical innovations & patient support in radiation oncology2021
Process mining to optimize palliative patient flow in a high-volume radiotherapy department.
Article in Technical innovations & patient support in radiation oncology, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 3 papers.
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Who cites it
3 citing papers in PubMed, 13 citations in OpenAlex.
- Enhancing labour efficiency in coffee harvesting using process mining and statistical analysis.BMC plant biology · 2026Article
- Utilizing process mining in quality management: A case study in radiation oncology.PLOS digital health · 2025Article
- A process mining approach for clinical guidelines compliance: real-world application in rectal cancer.Frontiers in oncology · 2023Article
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Authors and funding
9 authors at 3 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
introductionIn radiotherapy, palliative patients are often suboptimal managed and patients experience long waiting times. Event-logs (recorded local files) of palliative patients, could provide a continuative decision-making system by means of shared guidelines to improve patient flow. Based on an event-log analysis, we aimed to accurately understand how to successively optimize patient flow in palliative care.
methodsA process mining methodology was applied on palliative patient flow in a high-volume radiotherapy department. Five hundred palliative radiation treatment plans of patients with bone and brain metastases were included in the study, corresponding to 290 patients treated in our department in 2018. Event-logs and the relative attributes were extracted and organized. A process discovery algorithm was applied to describe the real process model, which produced the event-log. Finally, conformance checking was performed to analyze how the acquired event-log database works in a predefined theoretical process model.
resultsBased on the process discovery algorithm, 53 (10%) plans had a dose prescription of 8 Gy, 249 (49.8%) plans had a dose prescription of 20 Gy and 159 (31.8%) plans had a dose prescription of 30 Gy. The remaining 39 (7.8%) plans had different dose prescriptions. Considering a median value, conformance checking demonstrated that event-logs work in the theoretical model.
conclusionsThe obtained results partially validate and support the palliative patient care guideline implemented in our department. Process mining can be used to provide new insights, which facilitate the improvement of existing palliative patient care flows.
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