Extraction and Comparison of the Discharge Process in a Teaching Hospital

Background of the Study: Patient discharge process starts from the point of the initial order of the physician order and continues to the discharge time of a patient and the release of the bed that was allocated to him/her. Lengthening the patient discharge process is regarded as a negative factor in the management of beds; this lengthy process leads to delay in accepting new patients, increases the waiting time for the patients who demand an empty bed (especially in emergencies), imposes extra costs on the hospital, and creates some other problems. Therefore, discharge process pattern extraction and analysis can be helpful to shorten this process, accelerate the process of admission, reduce the costs of hospital, etc.
In the present study, first, the fuzzy model of the hospital's discharge process and the hospital's workflow pattern have been drawn according to the most frequent patterns in the data and based on the expert's opinions. Afterwards, the dotted charts of the different sectors have been extracted and analyzed using the process mining tools.
Findings: After analyzing the dotted charts, the delayed segments were specified on the pattern of the workflow and finally, some suggestions have been offered through separating the four areas of the human resources, the system, the environment.
The discharge process of a hospital is associated with almost all its sectors and to improve it, a huge part of the organization is involved.