Supporting and assisting the execution of flexible healthcare processes

Business process management has yet to fully conquer the healthcare sector. Although it has proven effective for more static and standardized healthcare processes, it does not offer a definitive answer for the dynamic, flexible and knowledge-intensive processes typically associated with the healthcare sector. Contemporary business process techniques, like imperative business process models (e.g., BPMN), do not allow for the flexibility required by these types of processes. In this paper we propose a new type of tool, a recommendation-based robust business process engine, in an effort to combat this problem. The goal is to not only support a more process-driven approach in healthcare, but also assist the users (i.e., doctors, nurses and other hospital personnel) during these processes. This should result in an improvement of the service levels and add another barrier to prevent doctor errors, without being detrimental to the empowerment of the personnel that characterizes the healthcare sector.