Analyzing complex patients’ temporal histories: New frontiers in temporal data mining

In recent years, data coming from hospital information systems (HIS) and local healthcare organizations have started to be intensively used for research purposes. This rising amount of available data allows reconstructing the compete histories of the patients, which have a strong temporal component. This chapter introduces the major challenges faced by temporal data mining researchers in an era when huge quantities of complex clinical temporal data are becoming available. The analysis is focused on the peculiar features of this kind of data and describes the methodological and technological aspects that allow managing such complex framework. The chapter shows how heterogeneous data can be processed to derive a homogeneous representation. Starting from this representation, it illustrates different techniques for jointly analyze such kind of data. Finally, the technological strategies that allow creating a common data warehouse to gather data coming from different sources and with different formats are presented.