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Poster · Western Institute of Nursing · 2020

Mining information in EHR logs: An alternative data source for EHR workflow analysis

Tolentino, D. A., Gephart, S. M., & Subbian, V. (2020). Published in Communicating Nursing Research, 53.

Nursing informaticsEHR workflowData mining
The big idea

The electronic health record quietly records how nurses move through it. We mined those logs to map nurses’ real workflow.

Who
Nurses using the electronic health record
How
Computational ethnography of EHR audit logs
What we learned
Recurring navigation patterns to inform EHR design

In plain language

Every click in the electronic health record (EHR) leaves a trace in its audit logs. We used those logs as a data source to map how nurses actually navigate the EHR, applying data-mining methods to find recurring patterns. The aim is to use these real-world patterns as a blueprint for redesigning the EHR so it better fits how nurses work.

About this study

We applied computational ethnography to EHR audit logs using Sequential Pattern Mining and Markov Chain Analysis to characterize nurses’ navigation behaviors and predict their overall navigational pathways, offering an alternative to traditional, time-consuming workflow analysis.

Key themes

1

Logs as data

Audit logs reveal hidden workflow patterns.

2

Computational ethnography

Data mining maps how nurses navigate.

3

Designing for nurses

Patterns can guide EHR redesign and a better user experience.