YAWL4Healthcare

Abstract

Hospitals face increasing pressure to both improve the quality of the services delivered to patients and to reduce costs. As a consequence of the open-market approach adopted in healthcare provision, hospitals must compete with each other on the basis of performance indicators such as total treatment costs for a patient, waiting time before treatment can start, etc. Patients visiting the hospital will no longer accept long waiting times, and increasingly have specific demands with respect to the planning of their appointments and quality of services they will receive. The aforementioned issues place significant demands on hospitals in regard to how the organization, execution, and monitoring of work processes is performed. Workflow Management Systems (WfMSs) offer a potential solution as they support processes by managing the flow of work, such that individual work items are done at the right time by the proper person. The main benefit of utilizing these kinds of systems is that processes can be executed faster and more efficiently. In addition, these processes can be closely monitored, potentially enhancing patient safety. It is generally agreed that WfMSs are mature enough to support administrative processes that are relatively stable and fixed in form. However, hospital processes are typically diverse, require flexibility, and often involve multiple medical departments in diagnostic and treatment processes. Even for patients who have the same condition, the actual diagnostic and treatment process that they undergo may vary considerably. Furthermore, it is often necessary to change the course of the treatment process based on the results of tests performed and the way in which a patient responds to individual treatments.