Integrated Clinical Pathways: A Model-based Holistic Method

Against the background of increasing multidisciplinarity as well as the focus on quality, transparency and economic efficiency of medical services, clinical pathways (CPs) have been established as a promising tool at the organizational level in recent years. They are primarily intended to ensure an adequate description of the care processes and to manage the balance between best treatment practice and economic viability. CPs standardize the internal care services by explicating the institution-specific knowledge with regard to recommendations for action, service portfolio, organizational structures, infrastructure, etc. of a specific service provider. The development of hospital information systems (HIS) has so far been characterized by an evolutionary development of modules in the field of laboratory, radiology, nursing and picture archiving systems as well as in the area of administrative systems. As one result of this development, the HIS usually comprises a heterogeneous network of software systems of different types and manufacturers. However, the actual control of patients by means of evidence-based processes and integration of CPs into HIS was not addressed until the recent years, when HIS manufacturers started developing modules for CP modeling and workflow support. The objective of this thesis is to provide a holistic methodical support for the description of clinical pathways and their integration into a hospital information system to finally improve the compliance of daily care to standard process definitions. Therefore, conceptual models provide an adequate mean to describe and communicate complex matters in a comprehensible form as well as to configure IT systems due to their semi-formal nature. Hence, a first research thread investigates the question, how clinical pathways can be described adequately using conceptual models. This results in an iterative design of adequate modeling languages for clinical pathways. A second research thread further investigates the question, how conceptual models of clinical pathways can be used to configure process-oriented application systems in health care. This thread therefore describes the design of a model-based method, that enables a consecutive transformation of CPs into technical (workflow) specifications, based on the principles of the Model-Driven Architecture.:A. Synopsis of the Doctoral Dissertation B. Agility in Medical Treatment Processes C. Domain Specific Modeling Language - CPmod D. BPMN4CP - Version 1.0 E. BPMN4CP - Version 2.0 F. BPMN4CP - Version 2.1 G. MDA in Health Care IS Development H. Transforming Clinical Pathways into Care Workflows I. CDA Templates - Utilizing the MediCUB

Facilitating Conflict Resolution of Models for Automated Enterprise Architecture Documentation

Enterprise Architecture (EA) management relies on solid and up-to-date information about the current state of an EA. In current practices the manual collection of information is prevailing resulting in an error-prone, time-consuming, and expensive task. Recent research efforts seek to automate this task by integrating existing information sources in the organization to optimize the EA documentation process. While automation of EA documentation enables many advantages, the transformation of the collected information to an EA model remains an unresolved challenge since it cannot be automated completely. In particular, conflicts resulting from partial transformations require involvement of EA Stakeholders possibly not having a technical background. In this paper we propose an approach for the conflict resolution facilitating our long-term goal of automated EA documentation. We illustrate our approach using a productive Enterprise Service Bus from a leading organization of the fashion industry and evaluate our approach with expert interviews

Spezifikation von funktionalen und nichtfunktionalen Systemanforderungen auf Basis von Geschäftsprozessmodellen

Anwendungssysteme unterstützen die Durchführung von Geschäftsprozessen. Daher ist eine enge Abstimmung von dem zu entwickelnden Anwendungssystem mit den unterstützten Geschäftsprozessen notwendig. In diesem Beitrag wird gezeigt, wie sich diese Abstimmung über die Ableitung von funktionalen und nichtfunktionalen Anforderungen an die Anwendungssysteme aus Geschäftsprozessmodellen realisieren lässt. Den gängigen Geschäftsprozessmodellierungssprachen liegt hierzu i. d. R. aufgrund ihres heterogenen Begriffs- und Modellverständnisses kein einheitliches Vorgehen zugrunde. Zur Beschreibung von Geschäftsprozessen wird daher ein allgemeingültiges Aufgabenkonzept verwendet, auf dessen Basis die Spezifikation von Anforderungen allgemein aus Geschäftsprozessmodellen erfolgen kann. Anschließend werden die Elemente von drei gängigen Geschäftsprozessmodellierungssprachen diesem Aufgabenkonzept zugeordnet, um damit konkret angegeben zu können, wie sich Anforderungen aus diesen Modellierungssprachen ableiten lassen

Stylized Facts as an Instrument for Literature Review and Cumulative Information Systems Research

The accumulation of scientific knowledge is an important objective of information systems (IS) research. Although different review approaches exist in the continuum between narrative reviews and meta-analyses, most reviews in IS are narrative or descriptive—with all related drawbacks concerning objectivity and reliability—because available under¬lying sources in IS do typically not fulfil the requirements of formal approaches such as meta-analyses. To discuss how cumulative IS research can be effectively advanced using a more formalized approach fitting the current situation in IS research, in this paper, we point out the potential of stylized facts (SFs). SFs are interesting, sometimes counterintuitive patterns in empirical data that focus on the most relevant aspects of observable phenomena by abstracting from details (stylization). SFs originate from the field of economics and have been successfully used in different fields of research for years. In this paper, we discuss their potential and challenges for literature reviews in IS. We supplement our argumentation with an application example reporting our experience with SFs. Because SFs show considerable potential for cumulative research, they seem to be a promising instrument for literature reviews and especially for theory development in IS

Material Modelling of Short Fiber Reinforced Thermoplastic for the FEA of a Clinching Test

In modern car body construction, multi-material and hybrid design is used, whereby short fibre reinforced plastics combined with light metals represent an interesting class of work-piece materials. In order to realize modern hybrid construction, suitable joining techniques are therefore required. Clinching represents a cost-effective and easy to implement joining method. In this paper the material modelling of the short fibre reinforced thermoplastic sheets considering the fibre orientation tensor for the FEA of the clinching process is presented

Rekonstruktion von Orten als sozialem Phänomen. Geoinformatische Analyse semantisch annotierter Verhaltensdaten ; Promotionstitel: Ein Framework zur geoinformatischen Analyse von semantisch annotierten Verhaltensdaten zur Rekonstruktion von Orten als sozialem Phänomen

Im Feld der Angewandten Informatik leistet die Arbeit einen Beitrag im Bereich ortsbezogene Geoinformationssysteme, indem durch einen räumlichen Lösungsansatz für eine ortsbezogene Verbundoperation eine bislang nicht verfügbare Funktion (Ähnlichkeit auf Orten) über unterschiedliche Datenarten und -quellen realisiert werden konnte, die sich für einen wichtigen Anwendungsfall (touristische Exploration einer Stadt) als äußerst produktiv erwiesen hat. Das Vorgehen, Zusammenhang zwischen Orten über partielle räumliche Koinzidenz herzustellen, steht dabei komplementär zu bisherigen Ansätzen, Verknüpfungen im Sinne des Qualitativen Räumlichen Schließens ausschließlich auf Ebene des verfügbaren ortsbezogenen Wissens herzustellen.In the area of applied computer science, the work contributes in the field of geo-information systems. A specific spatial approach for the implementation of a place-based join helped to provide a previously unavailable function (similarity of places) across different data types and sources which has provided valid results for an important use case (touristic exploration of a city). Establishing place-based joins via partial coincidence of footprints is complementary to previous approaches which establish links exclusively by qualitative spatial reasoning at the level of place-based knowledge

Literature Survey of Performance Benchmarking Approaches of BPEL Engines

Despite the popularity of BPEL engines to orchestrate complex and executable processes, there are still only few approaches available to help find the most appropriate engine for individual requirements. One of the more crucial factors for such a middleware product in industry are the performance characteristics of a BPEL engine. There exist multiple studies in industry and academia testing the performance of BPEL engines, which differ in focus and method. We aim to compare the methods used in these approaches and provide guidance for further research in this area. Based on the related work in the field of performance testing, we created a process engine specific comparison framework, which we used to evaluate and classify nine different approaches that were found using the method of a systematical literature survey. With the results of the status quo analysis in mind, we derived directions for further research in this area

Sind Geburten ansteckend? Fertilität und soziale Interaktion am Arbeitsplatz

In dieser Studie untersuchen wir, ob Fertilität am Arbeitsplatz "ansteckend" ist: Erhöht sich die Neigung, erstmalig schwanger zu werden, nachdem eine Kollegin ein Kind zur Welt gebracht hat? Zur dieser Frage unterscheiden wir auf Basis der Analytischen Soziologie unterschiedliche Mechanismen, die einen solchen Interaktionseffekt vermitteln können. Für die empirische Analyse verwenden wir "Linked Employer-Employee" Daten (1993-2007) der Bundesagentur für Arbeit (N=42.394 Frauen in 7.560 Betrieben). Diskrete Ratenmodelle zeigen einen deutlichen Ansteckungseffekt im Jahr nach einem Geburtsereignis einer Kollegin. In diesem Zeitraum ist die Neigung für eine Schwangerschaft nahezu doppelt so hoch. Unsere Ergebnisse sprechen dafür, dass die Ansteckung von Fertilität am Arbeitsplatz sowohl bedürfnis- als auch für überzeugungsvermittelt verläuft. Dabei stärkt die Interaktion mit schwangeren Kolleginnen und/oder ihren Neugeborenen sowohl den Kinderwunsch selbst als auch das Selbstvertrauen bei bestehendem Kinderwunsch.In this paper, we ask whether fertility at the workplace is "contagious", investigating the influence of colleagues’ fertility on women's transitions to first pregnancy. Our study is informed by the principles of analytical sociology, proposing different mechanisms that are likely to mediate social interaction effects on fertility. The empirical analysis draws on linked employer-employee panel data from the German Federal Employment Agency comprising 42,394 female co-workers in over 7,560 firms. Discrete-time hazard models reveal the existence of a contagion effect: In the year after a colleague gave birth, transition rates to pregnancy almost doubled. The results are consistent with desire- and belief-based mechanisms of social contagion, suggesting that interaction with pregnant colleagues and/or their newborns may generate or exacerbate the wish to have a child but also increase confidence in childbearing decisions by learning from a social model