Applying Data Mining to Healthcare: A Study of Social Network of Physicians and Patient Journeys
In 2004, the US President launched an initiative to make healthcare medical records available electronically [27 ]. This initiative gives researchers an opportunity to study and mine healthcare data across hospitals, pharmacies, and physicians in order to
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Abstract. In 2004, the US President launched an initiative to make healthcare medical records available electronically [27]. This initiative gives researchers an opportunity to study and mine healthcare data across hospitals, pharmacies, and physicians in order to improve the quality of care. Physicians can make better informed decisions regarding care of patients if physicians have proper understanding of patient journeys. In addition, physician healthcare decisions are influenced by their social networks. In this paper, we find patterns among patient journeys for pain medications from sickness to recovery or death. Next, we combine social network analysis and diffusion of innovation theory to analyze the diffusion patterns among physicians prescribing pain medications. Finally, we suggest an interactive visualization interface for visualizing demographic distribution of patients. The main implication of this research is a better understanding of patient journeys via data-mining and visualizations; and, improved decision-making by physicians in treating patients. Keywords: Diffusion of innovation · Patient journey · Social network analysis · Physicians · Visualization · Pain medications
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Introduction
Modern healthcare has started using a patient-centered approach by building and evaluating patient journeys through their sickness and recovery. The study of patient journeys is relatively recent innovation in the healthcare quality improvement process [1]. A patient’s journey involves a sequence of events that a patient proceeds through from the point of entry into the healthcare system (triggered by sickness) until the complete recovery or death. Thus, patient journeys include filling prescriptions at a pharmacy, visiting a doctor, being admitted to the hospital, undergoing lab tests, getting treatment, and recovering from sicknesses. Understanding the whole journey from patient’s point of view is important as the patient is the only person who experiences the whole journey [2]. Patient journeys highlight bottlenecks in the healthcare © Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2016 P. Perner (Ed.): MLDM 2016, LNAI 9729, pp. 599–613, 2016. DOI: 10.1007/978-3-319-41920-6_47
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system, which helps providers improve the system. Hence, a comprehensive approach to patient journeys can help impart provocative vision that may lead physicians to revise their treatment plan. During a patient’s journey, the decisions of the physicians may be influenced by their social network. Most importantly, the medication that a physician prescribes or any new innovation that he adopts is highly influenced by the interpersonal communication of the physician with the members of his personal network [5]. Here, social network analysis investigates various direct and indirect interpersonal communications and interaction patterns between the members of a social system. Since patients are the end-users of medications, the understanding of patient journeys will help us specify how and when patients consume pharmaceut
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