A care path (or pathway) is the formal definition of the medical and management activities and decision, and organization thereof, intended to carry out a care process in patient healthcare. It appears as a specialized variety of workflow. A care path generally is dedicated to a definite pathology and integrates different dimensions such as organizational context, agents, resources and information. Its main goals are to improve the quality of the healthcare and to optimize resource usage. Care paths are expressed in formal languages so that they can be processed to check their validity or even executed by workflow engines.
Published in Chapter:
Healthcare Information System Modelling
Jean-Luc Hainaut (University of Namur, Belgium), Anne-France Brogneaux (University of Namur, Belgium), and Anthony Cleve (University of Namur, Belgium)
Copyright: © 2013
|Pages: 20
DOI: 10.4018/978-1-4666-3990-4.ch028
Abstract
This chapter studies the requirements for a wide range of healthcare information systems, including, but not limited to, clinical pathways management, patient record management, home care management, and medical personnel and resource management. The analysis concentrates on the description and management of medical activities, leaving aside the standard management processes common to all enterprises. It develops a generic architecture for these information systems comprising four central submodels devoted to the description, respectively, of organizational structures, care processes, information, and resources. Each submodel is analysed independently of the others then integrated into a consistent global model. Extensions of this model to other facets of the healthcare information system are discussed and some practical applications are suggested.