Adaptive Workflows for Healthcare Information Systems
Current challenges in Healthcare Information Systems (HIS) include supplying patients with personalized medical information, creating means for efficient information flow between different healthcare providers in order to lower risks of medical errors and
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Abstract. Current challenges in Healthcare Information Systems (HIS) include supplying patients with personalized medical information, creating means for efficient information flow between different healthcare providers in order to lower risks of medical errors and increase the quality of care. To address these challenges, the information about patient-related processes, such as currently executed medical protocols, should be made available for medical staff and patients. Existing HIS are mostly data-centered, and therefore cannot provide an adequate solution. To give processes a prominent role in HIS, we apply the adaptive workflow nets framework. This framework allows both healthcare providers and patients to get an insight into the past and current processes, but also foresee possible future developments. It also ensures quality and timing of data communication essential for efficient information flow. Keywords: adaptive workflows, EPR, medical protocols, Healthcare Information Systems.
1 Introduction The recent study of the Netherlands Health Care Inspectorate [23] has established a number of serious shortcomings in the communication between healthcare providers that can cause risks for patient safety. The typical examples named in the study are a lack of communication between the anesthesiologist and the surgeon involved in the same surgery; repetitive overwritings of variable data, such as blood pressure, with no information when, in which circumstances and by whom the measurements were performed; the use of “no message — good message” principle in the communication between specialists; providing insufficient information for patients about their treatments and expected developments. Another tendency reported is the steady increase of the total amount of patient-related information available, which, on one hand, increases the survival rate, but on the other hand, complicates the overall picture due to the chaotic nature of the information. The chance that the surgeon is aware of all information relevant to the surgery being performed is estimated as very low. The problems mentioned indicate a great need in a new generation of Health Information Systems (HIS) that would satisfy new information and communication demands. A. ter Hofstede, B. Benatallah, and H.-Y. Paik (Eds.): BPM 2007 Workshops, LNCS 4928, pp. 359–370, 2008. c Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2008
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At the same time, the patient should become a focal point of the new generation HIS. On April 30 of 2004, the European Commission adopted an action plan [7] aiming at making healthcare better for European citizens. As opposed to currently available provider-centered health systems, the action plan envisions citizen-centered health systems. A survey of Harris Interactive and ARiA Marketing conducted in 2000 [15] shows that more than 80% of the respondents are interested in obtaining on-line personalized medical information and electronic alerts specific to their medical histories, while 69% would like to have access to the c
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