Contributions of Process Mining and Simulation to the Process Management Lifecycle Using the Example of Healthcare Case Studies

Process mining and simulation show considerable benefits taken for themselves. Process mining aims at building a process model to describe the behavior contained in event logs of information systems and is concerned with the past and the present, whereas simulation is concerned with future scenarios. A synergetic effect can be derived from combining these two approaches to conduct qualified Process Management. This paper contains a structuring analysis of relevant literature on process mining and simulation. As a large number of studies found was from the healthcare domain the focus was set on healthcare applications. The results are mapped to the (Business) Process Management Lifecycle by discovering patterns in the topic categories addressed by the different studies. The main takeaway is the comparison of application fields of process mining and simulation between healthcare and non-healthcare studies. These results can be used to develop case study designs dealing with core issues in healthcare management systems and processes to obtain more transparency and a more reliable basis for decision-making.