What is the project about

Welcome to the page where I will explain where my master thesis project is about.

The population that demands for care is increasing in the Netherlands, because of the aging population. Due to the economic crisis and this aging population, healthcare has to cut expenses without decrease in quality of care. A challenge where governments, companies, and a lot of people are focusing on nowadays.

During my master I learned, in a nutshell, how to analyze bottlenecks and improve these business processes. But healthcare always has been different in terms of business processes and implementation of this knowledge. My view is that healthcare is indeed different, but not unique. Different kind of industries and healthcare can be compared to each other, so these should be treated equal where possible, but different where necessary.

The conclusion from my literature review was that there were hardly, if any, reference process models used in healthcare. My thesis is about these reference models in healthcare. These reference models can be used to generalize actions between different organizations/departments. First let me explain what a reference model is and how these are created by showing you an example.

What is a reference model?

A reference model is a process model that is general for several process models. See figure 1 below. Process model 1 and process model 2 share the steps A and B, while X, Y, Z and K, L, M, respectively, are different for both the processes. In this case, steps A and B form the reference model, which can be used as a basis for a new process model.

Figure 1 - Graphical explanation of a reference (process) model and its application

Now you know what a reference model is, let me explain what the advantage is of a reference model.

What is the (expected) added value?

There are some known benefits, but these are not proven for healthcare. The added values of a reference model in other industries are several. Time reduction in the modeling process is one of them, when the reference model is modeled correctly. It is not necessary to model (a large part of) the process, because this is already captured in the reference model. Another known advantage is the homogeneous generated information. Any process model generates information, and when two process models are identical the information generated by this process model will also contain identical parameters. This will make information easy to compare and act upon the known issues and bottlenecks.

A general advantage is to implement patient oriented processes. If the reference model is patient oriented, the new process will be as well. The patient benefits from this because the quality of care will be better, equal quality across different hospitals, and a better throughput time. This latter can mean quicker, but can also be seen as a better fit to the patient's needs.

The reference models are visualized by using the available standard, namely BPMN2.0. This syntax is develop by an organization called OMG and the “primary goal of BPMN is to provide a notation that is readily understandable by all business users, from the business analysts that create the initial drafts of the processes, to the technical developers responsible for implementing the technology that will perform those processes, and finally, to the business people who will manage and monitor those processes. Thus, BPMN creates a standardized bridge for the gap between the business process design and process implementation.” (http://www.omg.org/spec/BPMN/2.0/PDF)

But is this syntax also suitable for non-business people like nurses, medical specialist and other clinicians? Or do we need a variant of BPMN to make the models readable for non-business people?

Questions like this will be answered in my thesis. So if you want to be kept up to date about the project, please fill in your email address on the right side of the home page. You will receive an e-mail when a new post is posted on my blog.