Guideline-based careflow systems.

This paper describes a methodology for achieving an efficient implementation of clinical practice guidelines. Three main steps are illustrated: knowledge representation, model simulation and implementation within a health care organisation. The resulting system can be classified as a 'guideline-based careflow management system'. It is based on computational formalisms representing both medical and health care organisational knowledge. This aggregation allows the implementation of a guideline, not only as a simple reminder, but also as an 'organiser' that facilitates health care processes. As a matter of fact, the system not only suggests the tasks to be performed, but also the resource allocation. The methodology initially comprehends a graphical editor, that allows an unambiguous representation of the guideline. Then the guideline is translated into a high-level Petri net. The resources, both human and technological necessary for performing guideline-based activities, are also represented by means of an organisational model. This allows the running of the Petri net for simulating the implementation of the guideline in the clinical setting. The purpose of the simulation is to validate the careflow model and to suggest the optimal resource allocation before the careflow system is installed. The final step is the careflow implementation. In this phase, we show that the 'workflow management' technology, widely used in business process automation, may be transferred to the health care setting. This requires augmenting the typical workflow management systems with the flexibility and the uncertainty management, typical of the health care processes. For illustrating the proposed methodology, we consider a guideline for the management of patients with acute ischemic stroke.

Supporting tools for guideline development and dissemination.

This paper describes a methodology for representing clinical practice guidelines and facilitating their introduction into the medical routine. Since this methodology can be exploited in a www environment, it can represent the basis for sharing clinical guidelines both between different institutions and between human and software agents cooperating within a clinical context. In addition, the proposed guideline formalization is intended to deal with patient and organization preferences. This goal is achieved by augmenting the guideline with decision analytic models and by linking the guideline with an organizational model of the clinical setting. The designed framework allows guideline development, tailoring and implementation, real-time access to the guideline prescriptions and guideline validation.

A computerized guideline for pressure ulcer prevention.

This paper illustrates the implementation of a computerized guideline for pressure ulcer prevention. In particular, it describes the aspects related to the site-specification of a guideline delivered by the Agency for Health Care Policy Research (AHCPR), to its integration with the electronic patient record, and to its implementation within the clinical routine. The primary goal of the system is both to facilitate nurses assessing the risk of ulcer development, and to manage patients at risk by producing daily prevention work-plans. Concerning this functionality, particular attention has been paid to manage nurse's non-compliance with the guideline suggestions and to collect data for evaluating the guideline impact. Moreover, since it is well known that nurses are often over-loaded, the human computer interaction has been studied in such a way to optimise the time spent for data input. An additional functionality of the system is the novice nurses' education - they can browse a graphical representation of the guideline, asking details about the different tasks, and they can simulate patients to obtain real-time advice. The educational tool is written in Java and it is based on a representation of the guideline as a relational database. A preliminary evaluation of the system has been performed and the results are presented on the management of about 40 patients.

Building patient workflow management systems by integrating medical and organizational knowledge.

Patient management is a distributed activity involving general practitioners, clinicians, analysts, nurses, etc. Thus an integrated Patient Workflow Management System (WfMS), based on a detailed model of both the organizational and medical knowledge, could heavily improve Health Care System's performance in terms of collaborative work and resource utilization. A set of tools was developed to improve 1) acquisition of medical knowledge represented through clinical practice Guideline, and 2) acquisition of organizational knowledge describing the work process.

A computerised guideline for pressure ulcer prevention.

This work illustrates the implementation of a computerised guideline for the pressure ulcers prevention. In particular, we describe the site-specification of a guideline delivered by the Agency for Health Care Policy Research, its integration with the electronic patient record, and its introduction within the clinical routine. The system facilitates trained nurses in the patient management by producing daily workplans, and novice nurses by running as an educational tool.

A patient workflow management system built on guidelines.

To provide high quality, shared, and distributed medical care, clinical and organizational issues need to be integrated. This work describes a methodology for developing a Patient Workflow Management System, based on a detailed model of both the medical work process and the organizational structure. We assume that the medical work process is represented through clinical practice guidelines, and that an ontological description of the organization is available. Thus, we developed tools 1) for acquiring the medical knowledge contained into a guideline, 2) to translate the derived formalized guideline into a computational formalism, precisely a Petri Net, 3) to maintain different representation levels. The high level representation guarantees that the Patient Workflow follows the guideline prescriptions, while the low level takes into account the specific organization characteristics and allow allocating resources for managing a specific patient in daily practice.