Browsing by Author "Erwee, H"

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    Development of a clinical pathway digital twin.
    (Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2024-02) Erwee, H; Basson, AH; Kruger, K; Stellenbosch University. Faculty of Engineering. Dept. of Mechanical and Mechatronic Engineering.
    ENGLISH ABSTRACT: The healthcare industry faces significant challenges due to the rapid technological advancements of Industry 4.0 as large volumes of data gets generated within healthcare facilities daily, which contains complex data relationships and a high variety of data. This surge of data, coupled with the complex nature of healthcare environments, is making it hard for healthcare professionals to effectively interpret and utilise healthcare data. This research aims to address this challenge by investigating the potential integration of digital twin technology into the healthcare domain, specifically within a clinical pathway context. This study, therefore, evaluates the concept of a Clinical Pathway Digital Twin (CPDT) as an information management tool for enhanced healthcare within clinical pathways. A requirement analysis was conducted to derive a set of fundamental requirements that a typical CPDT should meet. Mediclinic SA played an instrumental role during this phase by facilitating on-site observations at their hip and knee replacement clinical pathway at the Mediclinic Durbanville Hospital. Insights from these observations, combined with insights from literature, led to the identification of the following key needs within the clinical pathway context: real-time monitoring, standardised processes, regular and automatic data analysis, and effective human integration. In the research presented here, the CPDT requirements specifically focussed on enabling regular and automated data analysis within the clinical pathway. A proof-of-concept CPDT was developed and evaluated using a case study-based approach. The development of the CPDT followed a holonic system design process, using the Activity-Resource-Type-Instance (ARTI) holonic architecture. The Biography-Attributes-Schedule-Execution (BASE) platform was used to implement the holons. The CPDT is the first application of the BASE platform to explore its use for managing large volumes of data. Furthermore, the CPDT utilised an external data repository for the long-term storage of clinical pathway data and interfaced with external software to perform advanced analyses. In the case study, experiments were conducted to evaluate the CPDT's performance. These experiments demonstrated the CPDT’s ability to ingest data from data repositories, perform automated statistical analyses, and generate on-demand reports, thereby reducing manual tasks for healthcare professionals. The CPDT's interfacing with external analysis software for machine learning predictions of future activities demonstrated how healthcare professionals can derive valuable insights from the CPDT to inform decision-making within the clinical pathway. The CPDT successfully fulfilled all its functional requirements. Its modular ARTIbased holonic architecture allows easy adjustment of holon capabilities through modification of BASE plugins. The decentralised approach to clinical pathway data management demonstrated high data integrity and flexibility. The practical value of the CPDT is evident from the case study, with potential to improve clinical pathway efficiency, improve patient outcomes, and reduce healthcare costs. While the case study focused on a hip and knee replacement clinical pathway context, the results show potential for application across various clinical pathways, warranting further investigation and research.