IT Support for Healthcare Processes

Patient treatment processes require the cooperation of different organizational units and medical disciplines. In such an environment an optimal process support becomes crucial. Though healthcare processes frequently change, and therefore the separation of the flow logic from the application code seems to be promising, workflow management technology has not yet been broadly used in healthcare environments. In this paper we discuss why it is difficult to adequately support patient treatment processes by IT systems and which challenges exist in this context. We identify different levels of process support and distinguish
between generic process patterns and medical guidelines / pathways. While the former shall help to coordinate the healthcare process among different people and organizational units (e.g., the handling of a medical order), the latter are linked to medical treatment processes. Altogether there is a huge potential regarding the IT support of healthcare processes.