A model-based approach for the specification and verification of clinical guidelines

This paper presents a modeling methodology for clinical guidelines used in hospitals. The clinical guidelines are assumed to be given in a graphical form in a structure obtained by combining few elements. It is shown how the clinical guidelines represented with this syntax can be automatically converted into a mathematical model represented as Petri nets. The main advantage of the new model is the inclusion of resources and patient flow in the same model which makes possible its use in analysis and verification of the guidelines. Moreover, if different clinical guidelines in a hospital or department in a hospital are considered, the models can be used for resource optimization and performance evaluation. The clinical guideline of hip fracture from the ”Lozano Blesa” University hospital in Zaragoza is taken as an example.