Business Process Management Education in Academia: Status, challenges, and Recommendations

In response to the growing proliferation of Business Process Management (BPM) in industry and the demand this creates for BPM expertise, universities across the globe are at various stages of incorporating knowledge and skills in their teaching offerings. However, there are still only a handful of institutions that offer specialized education in BPM in a systematic and in-depth manner. This article is based on a global educators’ panel discussion held at the 2009 European Conference on Information Systems in Verona, Italy. The article presents the BPM programs of five universities from Australia, Europe, Africa, and North America, describing the BPM content covered, program and course structures, and challenges and lessons learned. The article also provides a comparative content analysis of BPM education programs illustrating a heterogeneous view of BPM. The examples presented demonstrate how different courses and programs can be developed to meet the educational goals of a university department, program, or school. This article contributes insights on how best to continuously sustain and reshape BPM education to ensure it remains dynamic, responsive, and sustainable in light of the evolving and ever-changing marketplace demands for BPM expertise

Information Systems and Healthcare XIX: Developing an Integrative Health Informatics Graduate Curriculum

This paper details the development of a Masters in Health Informatics (MHI) program. It traces the design from conception through environmental scanning and curriculum development and into survey validation. One of the underlying characteristics identified in the analysis of other programs was that there seemed to be two subgroups or themes in health informatics programs: clinical and health administrative foci. A draft curriculum addressing the interest of both subgroups was developed, and a focus group of local health care industry professionals was conducted. The draft curriculum was the basis for surveys targeting the two potential subgroups. In addition to validating the interest in a masters program from both groups, the data was analyzed for potential differences between the two groups. These results confirmed the initial premise that a well-designed health informatics curriculum must address both the clinical and healthcare administration subgroups

On The Alliance of Executive Education and Research inInformation Management at the University of Amsterdam

Over the past fifteen years, Information Management (IM) has emerged as a management sub discipline, both in academic research and in practice. The creation of an Information Management Chair at the University of Amsterdam reflects the importance. What started as a chair in Information Systems on the periphery of the Faculties of Economics and Computer Science, now incorporates a fully integrated discipline in the Amsterdam graduate Business School. Its main activities are the running of Bachelors and Masters programs in Business Studies and Information Studies (both with a major in IM), the Executive Master in Information Management (EMIM) program and the PrimaVera (a playful acronym for PRogram in Information MAnagement at the uniVERsity of Amsterdam) research program. This research note predominantly deals with the combination of the latter two. IM is a young discipline, still struggling with its theoretical identity and its role and place in organizations. Our approach to IM is primarily aimed at keeping the significance of IM to practice (and hence overcoming the common belief that \u27academic\u27 stands for being \u27impractical\u27), yet conforming to and applying academic rigor to the discipline. This approach was shaped by 15 years of experience in aligning executive education and research. The incessant interaction of education and research and of university and business simultaneously is noticeably helpful in highlighting the very concept of IM and its constituent parts. Teaching at the frontline of an emerging discipline give rise to innovative combinations of learning and research in which the specific expertise of executive students as reflective practitioners is exploited. These observations are in line with the often-heard appeals to study and develop IM in innovative, generative and action-based ways. In this respect, traditional academic ivory tower approaches are too distant to be relevant to practice. This research note gives an account of the (as far as we are aware of: unique) combination of executive education and research in IM as it is practiced at the University of Amsterdam. To this end, we first elaborate on the joint learning model and notion of IM, after which we discuss the EMIM program in brief and the PrimaVera research program more at length

Models of Information Systems devoted to Medical Imaging Labs: an experience in the CNR Clinical Physiology Institute

abstract for the paper presentation about the decennal experience at IFC on information systems developped for medical imaging labsabstract per la presentazione relativa alla decennale esperienza presso IFC sui sistemi informativi sviluppati per uso dei laboratori dedicati all\u27imaging clinico e di ricerca medic

Business Process Management Education in Academia: Status, Challenges, and Recommendations

In response to the growing proliferation of Business Process Management (BPM) in industry and the demand this creates for BPM expertise, universities across the globe are at various stages of incorporating knowledge and skills in their teaching offerings. However, there are still only a handful of institutions that offer specialized education in BPM in a systematic and in-depth manner. This article is based on a global educators’ panel discussion held at the 2009 European Conference on Information Systems in Verona, Italy. The article presents the BPM programs of five universities from Australia, Europe, Africa, and North America, describing the BPM content covered, program and course structures, and challenges and lessons learned. The article also provides a comparative content analysis of BPM education programs illustrating a heterogeneous view of BPM. The examples presented demonstrate how different courses and programs can be developed to meet the educational goals of a university department, program, or school. This article contributes insights on how best to continuously sustain and reshape BPM education to ensure it remains dynamic, responsive, and sustainable in light of the evolving and ever-changing marketplace demands for BPM expertise

Process improvement in healthcare: Overall resource efficiency

This paper aims to develop a unifying and quantitative conceptual framework for healthcare processes from the viewpoint of process improvement. The work adapts standard models from operation management to the specifics of healthcare processes. We propose concepts for organizational modeling of healthcare processes, breaking down work into micro processes, tasks, and resources. In addition, we propose an axiological model which breaks down general performance goals into process metrics. The connexion between both types of models is made explicit as a system of metrics for process flow and resource efficiency. The conceptual models offer exemplars for practical support in process improvement efforts, suggesting to project leaders how to make a diagrammatic representation of a process, which data to gather, and how to analyze and diagnose a process's flow and resource utilization. The proposed methodology links on to process improvement methodologies such as business process reengineering, six sigma, lean thinking, theory of constraints, and total quality management. In these approaches, opportunities for process improvement are identified from a diagnosis of the process under study. By providing conceptual models and practical templates for process diagnosis, the framework relates many disconnected strands of research and application in process improvement in healthcare to the unifying pursuit of process improvement

Electronic Falls Reporting System Implementation: Evaluating Data Collection Methods and Studying User Acceptance

In this research, we detail the development of a novel, easy-to-use system to facilitate electronic patient falls reporting within a long-term residential care facility (LTRCF) using off-the-shelf technology that can be inexpensively implemented in a wide variety of settings. We report the results of four complimentary system evaluation measures that take into consideration varied organizational stakeholders’ perspectives: 1) System-level benefits and costs, 2) System usability, via scenario-based use cases, 3) A holistic assessment of users’ physical, cognitive, and marcoergonomic (work system) challenges in using the system, and 4) User technology acceptance. We report the viability of collecting and analyzing data specific to each evaluation measure and detail the relative merits of each measure in judging whether the system is acceptable to each stakeholder. The electronic falls reporting system was successfully implemented, with 100% electronic submission rate at 3-months post-implementation period. The system-level benefits and costs approach showed that the electronic system required no initial investment costs aside from personnel costs and significant benefits accrued from user time savings. The usability analysis revealed several fixable design flaws and demonstrated the importance of scenario-based user training. The technology acceptance model showed that users perceived the reporting system to be useful and easy to use, even more so after implementation. Finally, the holistic human factors evaluation identified challenges encountered when nurses used the system as a part of their daily work, guiding further system redesign. The four-pronged evaluation framework accounted for varied stakeholder perspectives and goals and is a highly scalable framework that can be easily applied to Health IT (Information Technology) implementations in other LTRCFs