Business Process Management (BPM) includes methods, techniques, and tools to support the design, enactment, management, and analysis of operational business processes. It can be considered as an extension of classical Workflow Management (WFM) systems and approaches. Although the practical relevance of BPM is undisputed, a clear definition of BPM and related acronyms such as BAM, BPA, and STP are missing. Moreover, a clear scientific foundation is missing. In this paper, we try to demystify the acronyms in this domain, describe the state-of-the-art technology, and argue that BPM could benefit from formal methods/languages (cf. Petri nets, process algebras, etc.).

Business Process Management: A Survey

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Trust and trustworthiness: A framework for successful design of telemedicine

There is a worldwide concern for increased efficiency and cost effectiveness in healthcare delivery which in the USA represents about 16% of the Gross Domestic Product. The variability and complexity of the processes within healthcare systems demand the use of more sophisticated management tools, such as the recommended by a joint study by the National Academy of Engineering and the Institute of Medicine in the USA (NAE 2005), to improve the healthcare delivery system. In this chapter it is seen the integration of three management tools (Activity Based Costing, Lean Healthcare and Process Simulation) to facilitate the development of Medical Imaging Center (MIC) studies in order to improve the patient s processes, which departs from traditional modeling because it uses a pull paradigm for the patients. Activity Based Costing (ABC Costing) is used to identify improvement opportunities from the managers’ point of view, Lean Healthcare (Lean) to identify opportunities from the Customers point of view and Process Simulation (Simulation) to test the potential impact of any proposed alternative identified with ABC Costing or Lean, prior to its implementation. The center to be modeled might be as simple as having one x-ray machine, or, more complex having all kind of imaging machines (magnetic resonance, CT, x-ray, digestive radiology, ultrasound scan, angiography, mammography and others).

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Tools to Improve the Patient’s Processes at Imaging Centers

Process, or functional, modeling facilitates design and analysis of systems by providing a structure for communicating the interaction of information, resources, and activities. Automated modeling tools ease the development of complex process models and assist in navigation but there remains the problem of navigating between key areas while maintaining a detailed and contextual understanding of the relationships of interest. The web-based prototype described in this paper provides an alternate display of IDEF0 models, allowing the user to investigate and navigate low-level processes, while displaying high-level contextual information.

http://web.engr.oregonstate.edu/~funkk/Publications/Hastings%20&%20Funk,%202008.pdf

Improving the Navigation and Information Integration of Complex Process Models: A Case Study Using IDEF0

Both process modelling and simulation play an important role in understanding healthcare processes. Since IDEF0 can effectively capture requirements and is relatively easy to communicate, combining IDEF0 with simulation provides a promising way to analyse processes dynamically and to assist in decision-making. This paper explores the feasibility of building an environment that can be used to simulate real IDEF0 models for healthcare processes. EXPRESS language is used to capture the required information that would make an IDEF0 model capable of simulation. An example IDEF0 model simulator is developed in order to explore some of the issues in simulating healthcare processes. A prototype system structure for this simulator is provided in the paper. The healthcare process is used as an example application in this paper. An example IDEF0 model for "Identify Patient Safety Hazards" process represented by XML is loaded and simulated.

X. Jin

Papers

Towards A Dynamic Healthcare Process: From Requirement Capture To Simulation