A modern process perspective, process mapping, and simulation in health care : Opportunities and IT infrastructural needs

• Today, health care organizations often claim that theyare “process oriented”, and that one should approach health carefrom a process perspective in order to utilize the present ITrelated benefits; such as increased service quality, cost efficiency,and enhanced communication. In this paper we investigate howwell founded the concept of process orientation really is – byexamining IT/IS infrastructures, and procedures for processdefinition, visualization, and evaluation – at a prominent hospitalin Stockholm, Sweden. A case study of the organization and theinteraction of the emergency and radiology departments at thesame hospital (using process mapping and data analysis) revealsdata fragmentation, incompatible data, and disparateinformation systems. This results in difficulties regarding processdefinition and analysis, which makes the use of innovative toolssuch as simulation, problematic. The implications of this, and thecontextual factors, are also discussed and some finalrecommendations for smooth digitization are put forth.Today, health care organizations often claim that theyare “process oriented”, and that one should approach health carefrom a process perspective in order to utilize the present ITrelated benefits; such as increased service quality, cost efficiency,and enhanced communication. In this paper we investigate howwell founded the concept of process orientation really is – byexamining IT/IS infrastructures, and procedures for processdefinition, visualization, and evaluation – at a prominent hospitalin Stockholm, Sweden. A case study of the organization and theinteraction of the emergency and radiology departments at thesame hospital (using process mapping and data analysis) revealsdata fragmentation, incompatible data, and disparateinformation systems. This results in difficulties regarding processdefinition and analysis, which makes the use of innovative toolssuch as simulation, problematic. The implications of this, and thecontextual factors, are also discussed and some finalrecommendations for smooth digitization are put forth.

Keyword

IT

digitization

process mapping

process orientation

data analysis

discrete event simulation (DES)

health care.

TECHNOLOGY

TEKNIKVETENSKAP

Publication and Content Type

ref (subject category)

kon (subject category)