Business intelligence and nosocomial infection decision making

Abstract

Nosocomial infection prevention in healthcare units it is very important to improve patient’s well-being and safety. This prevention can be done by manipulating and analysing real data to identify critical processes and areas inside the healthcare unit, and monitoring indicators generated from data. The main goal of this paper is to evaluate the applicability of the Business Intelligence tools and concepts to healthcare and their performance as a Clinical Decision Support System, analyzing the evolution of nosocomial infection in the Centro Hospitalar do Porto, by defining a set of indicators that can help the nosocomial infection management and inducing Data Mining models to predict the occurrence of nosocomial infections (sensitivity of 91%). A Business Intelligence system composed by the presentation of a set of indicators and a Data Mining part capable of predict the occurrence of infection can provide important information to support healthcare professionals in their decisions.