Healthcare process analysis and improvement at Department of abdominal surgery-University Medical Centre Ljubljana

Damij, Nadja, Damij, Talib and Jelenc, Franc (2015) Healthcare process analysis and improvement at Department of abdominal surgery-University Medical Centre Ljubljana. Slovenian Medical Journal, 84 (1). pp. 26-37. ISSN 1318-0347

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Abstract

Background: Healthcare processes in hospitals, likewise processes in companies or governmental organizations, may accumulate problems and obstacles over time, which consequently cause the processes to become ineffective. BPM (Business Process Management) is an approach to process modeling, improvement and automating, which has been used with great success for process improvement.

Methods: This work was to examine the possibility of improving healthcare process by using BPM. To implement BPM ideas, a revised TAD (Tabular Application Development) methodology was developed, representing an important contribution to BPM. The first three phases of the TAD methodology were introduced in a step-bystep approach. The first phase deals with process identification, the second develops the “as-is” model, and the third phase discusses process improvement by developing a “to-be” model.

Results: We found that (a) the Surgery process is efficient and well organized; (b) patient stay in the Department could be shortened; however for humane and social reasons the leadership prefers to leave the residence time as it is; (c) the process is associated with some time-consuming activities that are performed by other departments and represent the bottleneck of the process.

Conclusions: The following were concluded (a) BPM proved to be a suitable approach for carrying out healthcare process improvement; (b) the revised TAD methodology showed to be consistent and efficient in performing BPM approach; (c) The Surgery process discussed was found to be an effective one and no changes or improvements are needed; (d) Concerning time-consuming activities, the leadership decided to discuss this problem with the management of the departments where the activities are executed.

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