Process potential screening - an instrument to improve business processes in hospitals.

OBJECTIVES: Hospitals are increasingly under pressure to optimize their processes. So far, an instrument to systematically identify the potentials for improvement of a given business process is missing. The aim of this project is to develop such an instrument. METHODS: Initially, central aspects of the quality of a hospital process were identified on the basis of a systematic literature review. Secondary to that, criteria to measure quality aspects were defined: More than 300 criteria from medical and business informatics, economics and quality management publications were gathered and systematically aggregated. RESULTS: As a result, the Process Potential Screening (PPS) instrument was developed. The PPS is a matrix containing two axes: Axis I comprises 30 quality aspects referring to results, execution and control of hospital processes. Axis II comprises 16 quality criteria (e.g., customer satisfaction, time). The PPS displays approximately 400 relevant combinations of those quality aspects and quality criteria that help to identify potentials for improvement of a given hospital process. It utilizes different methods for the measurement of the criteria and for application by way of individuals or groups. CONCLUSIONS: In using the PPS, relevant potentials for improvement were identified in ten typical hospital processes. The instrument's practicability must now be examined in further studies by the final target group (e.g., quality or project managers, and the staff responsible for processes).

Systems analysis in health care: framework and example.

OBJECTIVES: Due to the high complexity of structures and processes in health care, thorough systems analyses in health care run the risk of becoming very complex and difficult to handle. Therefore, we aimed to support systematic systems analysis in health care by developing a comprehensive framework that presents and describes potential areas of analysis. METHODS: A framework for systems analysis in health care was developed and applied in a health care setting. To provide a clear structure, the framework describes the potential views and levels of systems analyses in a health care environment. RESULTS: The framework comprises five views (roles and responsibilities, information processing and tools, communication, business processes, teams structure and cooperation) and five levels of analysis (overall organization, organizational unit, staff member, role, task). The framework was successfully applied in an analysis of the structures and processes of the Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry of the University Medical Center Heidelberg. CONCLUSIONS: The proposed comprehensive framework aims to structure the views and levels of systems analysis in the complex health care environment. Our first experiences support the usefulness of such a framework.

Analysis and modelling of the multi-professional treatment process: preliminary results.

This paper presents first results of a research project aimed at improving co-operative work initiatives in hospitals. A holistic analysis of the treatment process is presented as a precondition for process reengineering, quality measurements and improvement of multi-professional co-operation. Treatment process modelling attempts within the last years have concentrated on specialised points of views, such as business process modelling or communication modelling. In contrast, we have developed a framework consisting of several views of the treatment process. We tested our framework in a broad system analysis within the Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry of the Heidelberg University Hospitals. Our preliminary results support the framework. Weaknesses were described precisely in both the field of organisational procedures and information management.

Analysis and modeling of the treatment process characterizing the cooperation within multi-professional treatment teams.

We would like to introduce several aspects of the analysis and modeling of the treatment process characterizing the cooperation within multi-professional treatment teams. We will determine what is meant by a treatment process in order to then look at five views and four levels of their description. We will introduce possible methods for surveying and describing it. Currently an extensive analysis of the current state of the treatment process and of the weaknesses is underway in the Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry of the Heidelberg University Medical Center.