BPR best practices for the healthcare domain

Healthcare providers are under pressure to work more efficiently and in a more patient-focused way. One possible way to achieve this is to launch Business Process Redesign (BPR) initiatives, which focus on changing the structure of the involved processes and using IT as an enabler for such changes. In this paper, we argue that a list of historically successful improvement tactics, the BPR best practices, are a highly suitable ingredient for such efforts in the healthcare domain. Our assessment is based on the analysis of 14 case studies. The insights obtained by the analysis also led to an extension of the original set of best practices

A process analysis of the Namibian Health System: An exploratory case study

AbstractBackground: The Namibian health system is fragmented and data are collected from disparate systems that are not interoperable. Interoperability in this case refers to the ability of health information systems (HISs) to communicate and exchange health-related data at various healthcare levels. The multiplicity of HISs has resulted in limited access to integrated data across the entire health system, leading to duplication of data and under-reporting from primary healthcare facilities, yielding unreliable institution-based data within the health system.Methods: A qualitative approach was employed using a two-phase design. In phase one, a business process re-engineering (BPR) approach was applied to conduct a process analysis of the Namibian health system. A process model is developed to illustrate health inter-level data flows. In phase two, the process model was validated by experts, and semi-structured interviews were conducted as part of a Delphi study to elicit the opinions of experts on challenges and bottlenecks in the data flow process. Interview results were inductively analyzed using the NVivo software to identify themes and patterns from the data.Findings: The national HIS faces pertinent challenges concerning fragmented systems, originating from vertical programmes and donor-funded systems that do not exchange data with the national-level district health information system (DHIS). Findings also highlight that Namibia, among other developing nations, faces similar integration challenges, such as a lack of a trained workforce, different healthcare interoperability standards used by various HISs, an inadequate foundational infrastructure, and an absence of policies, unclear roles and structures that are necessary for driving HIS integration initiatives.Conclusion: There is a need to strengthen collaboration between the national HISs and vertical health systems (VHSs) to address curb the integration challenges. The Ministry of Health (MoH) needs to invest in capacity building projects to train HIS officers on data analysis and use of DHIS 2. In addition, a clear outline of structures and functions needs to be defined to ensure that various MoH units, particularly the IT department, fulfill their primary role of providing IT services, including HIS integration.  [Ethiop. J. Health Dev. 2018;32(4):200-209]Key words: Health information systems, process analysis, business process re-engineering, integration, interoperability, Namibi

A Critical Evaluation and Framework of Business Process Improvement Methods

The redesign of business processes has a huge potential in terms of reducing costs and throughput times, as well as improving customer satisfaction. Despite rapid developments in the business process management discipline during the last decade, a comprehensive overview of the options to methodologically support a team to move from as-is process insights to to-be process alternatives is lacking. As such, no safeguard exists that a systematic exploration of the full range of redesign possibilities takes place by practitioners. Consequently, many attractive redesign possibilities remain unidentified and the improvement potential of redesign initiatives is not fulfilled. This systematic literature review establishes a comprehensive methodological framework, which serves as a catalog for process improvement use cases. The framework contains an overview of all the method options regarding the generation of process improvement ideas. This is established by identifying six key methodological decision areas, e.g. the human actors who can be invited to generate these ideas or the information that can be collected prior to this act. This framework enables practitioners to compose a well-considered method to generate process improvement ideas themselves. Based on a critical evaluation of the framework, the authors also offer recommendations that support academic researchers in grounding and improving methods for generating process improvement ideas. Next to the framework and its critical evaluation, this review investigates the research procedures of the studies that were used to create the framework. Related to this investigation, academic researchers can find additional guidance regarding procedures for building and evaluating new methods

Process analysis using business process management: a case study on incident management

Business process management is widely used to improve companies’ competitive level. Incident management is a critical process as it supports the main services of an organization. Its speed and accuracy are paramount to companies. This research aims at analysing an incident management process of a global company and produce managerial recommendations on how to improve its performance. A case study approach is conducted. Process analysis is conducted based in interviews, direct observation, and focus group to assure data triangulation. Process improvement is based on the goals of the process and managerial recommendations are provided to support that improvement.info:eu-repo/semantics/acceptedVersio

Assimilating Healthcare Information Systems in a Malaysian Hospital

The importance of information systems/information technology (IS/IT) to healthcare organisations is being recognised today as paramount and critical in order to realise superior healthcare delivery. Successful assimilation of IS/IT, which is the central focus of this study, then becomes a key consideration in ensuring that IS/IT is appropriately and systematically deployed into a healthcare organisation. The key findings from this research indicate that there are people, process, technology and environment elements that should be considered as facilitators to the healthcare information systems (HIS) assimilation process, as well as barriers that the healthcare organisation should overcome throughout the entire assimilation process or at specific stages. This research, therefore, is not only topical but especially beneficial to management and administrators in the web of healthcare players as they grapple with trying to successfully assimilate HIS into their respective organisations

Using BPM to improve it service management: an incident management case study

Business process management is a methodology focused on the continuous improvement of business processes, providing for this a collection of best practices. These best practices enable the redesign of business processes to meet the desired performance. By using this methodology, organisations can improve their business processes to achieve their objectives. IT service management defines the management of IT operations as a service. There are several IT service management frameworks available, consisting in best practices that propose standardizing these processes for the respective operations. By adopting these frameworks, organisations can align IT with their business objectives. The objective of this research is to understand how business process management can be applied for the improvement of IT service management processes. To achieve this goal, a case study is conducted for the improvement of the time performance of an incident management process, as it is a process that, to the best of our knowledge, has not been analysed for this objective. The results obtained identified three best practices – activity automation, activity elimination and integral technology – as the best suited for the improvement of the time performance of the analysed incident management process. Using a simulation tool for business processes, it was revealed that the employment of these best practices in the analysed incident management process eliminates the effort required in the 1st support level and reduces in 10.7% the average processing time in the 2nd support level.A gestão de processos de negócio é uma metodologia focada na melhoria contínua de processos de negócio, indicando para isso um conjunto de melhores práticas. Estas melhores práticas permitem o redesenho dos processos de negócio para obter o desempenho desejado. Através da aplicação desta metodologia, as organizações conseguem melhorar os seus processos de negócio para alcançarem os seus objectivos de negócio. A gestão de serviços de TI define a gestão das operações de TI como um serviço. Existem divesas frameworks para gestão de serviços de TI, consistindo em melhores práticas que propõem processos-padrão de TI para as respectivas operações. Com a adopção de frameworks, as organizações conseguem alinhar as TI com os seus objectivos de negócio. O objectivo desta investigação é perceber como é que a gestão de processos de negócio pode ser aplicada para a melhoria de processos de gestão de serviços de TI. Para atingir este objectivo, é conduzido um caso de estudo para a melhoria de desempenho do tempo num processo de gestão de incidentes, sendo este um processo que, de acordo com o conhecimento adquirido, ainda não foi analisado com este objectivo. Os resultados obtidos identificaram três melhores práticas – automação de atividades, eliminação de atividades e introdução de novas tecnologias – como as mais ajustadas para a melhoria de desempenho do tempo no processo de gestão de incidentes analisado. Recorrendo a uma ferramenta de simulação de processos de negócio, foi revelado que a aplicação destas melhores práticas no processo de gestão de incidentes analisado elimina o esforço necessário no 1º nível de suporte e reduz em 10.7% o tempo médio de processamento no 2º nível de suporte

Patient-Perspective Task Performance: Creating Contextually Relevant Student Clinical Training Through the Use of Patient Experience

Patient-centered and patient-focused care purports that patients are at the center of all clinical decisions made for optimal medical outcomes. Optimal medical outcomes originate from accurately and reliably executed task performance by healthcare professionals trained to administer highly specific care for each patient condition. Many of these executed tasks are performed in the presence of the patient; this is defined as direct patient care. However, there are equally important tasks executed that are not performed in the presence of the patient; the performance of diagnostic laboratory testing is an example of such tasks. Clinical training of healthcare laboratory professionals begins with enrollment into degree-based or certificate-based training programs designed to instruct students on theory and practice of diagnostic testing and associated tasks that support testing. This instruction comes in the form of didactic coursework and clinical practicums performed in a hospital or clinic-based setting. Most of the instruction clinical students receive is designed by college faculty who teach within Clinical Laboratory Science and Medical Laboratory Technology programs, and their students complete all practical training in the hospital clinical laboratory setting. This study examined how these clinical training experiences are created to include patient experience and what instructional strategies are used in clinical training for Medical Technology students. A qualitative case study design sought to describe how faculty, and the instructional designers who assist them, design program curriculum to include the patient perspective, which is used to create instructional strategies to enhance the patient experience. Findings show that little purposeful planning and design exists for patient experience inclusion within the design of curriculum; however, clinical training instructional strategies indirectly teach the concept using various types of case-based scenarios aligned to intended purpose and expected outcome