A modern process perspective, process mapping, and simulation in health care: Opportunities and IT infrastructural needs

Today, health care organizations often claim that they are ¿process oriented¿, and that one should approach health care from a process perspective in order to utilize the present IT related benefits; such as increased service quality, cost efficiency, and enhanced communication. In this paper we investigate how well founded the concept of process orientation really is - by examining IT/IS infrastructures, and procedures for process definition, visualization, and evaluation - at a prominent hospital in Stockholm, Sweden. A case study of the organization and the interaction of the emergency and radiology departments at the same hospital (using process mapping and data analysis) reveals data fragmentation, incompatible data, and disparate information systems. This results in difficulties regarding process definition and analysis, which makes the use of innovative tools such as simulation, problematic. The implications of this, and the contextual factors, are also discussed and some final recommendations for smooth digitization are put forth.