Probabilistic event processing for situational awareness

Abstract

Over the last century the continuous innovation of technology, coupled with a steady increase in the size of the healthcare organizations, has created a need for information systems supporting healthcare professionals with their daily tasks and decisions. Modern hospitals are full of technology producing electronic records of events and activities, with the opportunity of these events culminating in a wealth of information that these semi-autonomous experts can tap into to improve situational awareness, facilitate coordination and take better informed decisions. However, processing these footprints, contextualizing and inferring over them presents several interesting challenges to the current state of Complex Event Processing methods. This article looks at challenges presented by an information system for perioperative process support and how contextualization and adequate tool support can provide the essential backdrop for meaningful inference.