[AISWorld] PhD Position: Process Modeling and Mining in Medical Care (VU Amsterdam)

[Hajo Reijers]

PhD Position: Process Modeling and Mining in Medical Care (VU Amsterdam)

Project

Medical guidelines ensure that clinical practice is maximally
effective, but they often lag behind the state-of-the-art. New
research is published at an astonishing rate - PubMed grows with 2000
papers per day - while it typically takes at least three years before
a single guideline is updated. This project intends to speed up the
update cycle of medical guidelines by the automatic collection and
interpretation of evidence, as inferred from hospital data and Medical
Linked Open Data sets. The project is carried out in close cooperation
with medical practitioners.

The increasing availability of various types of data provides
opportunities for data-centric approaches to the guideline updating
problem, as compared to the slow, labor-intensive process that exists
today. In particular, it seems promising to exploit event data on the
actual execution of medical processes and open data from a variety of
sources. The project will focus on:

 1. The identification of a conflict between the prescribed process
model (the guideline) and the observed process model (event data);

2. The observation of unacceptably poor results of the prescribed
process/guideline (quality indicators);

3. The occurrence of new knowledge in the scientific literature (open data);

The project will use Linked Open Data to build a bridge from
guidelines to mined models, indicators and data, but also to bootstrap
process mining. We will investigate different methods for mapping
mined process models onto guidelines (KR-based, rule-based or based on
graph structure).

Project link: http://busi.cs.vu.nl/positions.html

Requirements: To fill the PhD position for this project, we will be
looking for an enthusiastic candidate with a strong motivation and the
ability to proactively tackle the project’s research questions. The
candidate should have a background (master degree or equivalent) in
either medical informatics or in computer science/artificial
intelligence, and have an outspoken interest in the medical domain.
Since the medical guidelines in question are available only in Dutch,
proficiency in this language is a very strong advantage for a
successful execution of the project. Experience with data modelling
(linked data) and data analysis techniques, in particular process
mining, is considered as another advantage.

Salary: The salary will be in accordance with university regulations
for academic personnel, and range from a minimum of € 2222,00 gross
per month in the first year up to a maximum of € 2840,00 gross per
month (salary scale 85.0-3 CAO NU) based on a full-time employment.

Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam (VU) is a leading, innovative and growing
university that is at the heart of society and actively contributes to
new developments in teaching and research. Our university has ten
faculties, and provides work for over 4,500 staff and scientific
education for more than 23,000 students.

Research at the Faculty of Sciences focuses on the areas of Life &
Health, Networked World, Fundamentals of Science, and Energy &
Sustainability. The faculty’s teaching activities are directly linked
to this excellent research. Cooperation with other faculties on the
Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam campus generates attractive, high-quality
Bachelor’s and Master’s programmes.  At international level, the
faculty cooperates closely with leading scientific institutes and
other partners.

The VU Department of Computer Science has approximately 170 members,
including 35 tenured staff members and 40-50 PhD students. The tenured
staff members form the essential basis for the functioning of the
department. A tenured staff member is required to make significant
contributions to the research and education programmes, and to spend
effort on specific tasks at the department level.

Information: For additional information please contact:

Prof. dr. ir. Hajo Reijers, Phone: +31 20 59 87824, E-mail: h.a.reijers at vu.nl

Dr. Annette ten Teije, phone: +31 20 59 87721, E-mail: annette.ten.teije at vu.nl

Application: Applicants are requested to write a letter in which they
describe their abilities and motivation, accompanied by a curriculum
vitae and two or three references (names and e-mail addresses).
Applications should be sent by email to
informatica.secretariaat.few at vu.nl before January 11, 2018.  Please
mention the vacancy number in the e-mail header.