Generating Evidence-Based Pathway Models for Different Hospital Information Systems

Abstract

Healthcare providers are facing an enormous cost pressure and a scarcity of resources, so that they need to realign in the tension between economic efficiency and demand-oriented healthcare. Clinical guidelines and clinical pathways have been established in order to improve the quality of care and to reduce costs at the same time. Clinical guidelines provide evident medical knowledge for diagnostic and therapeutic issues, while clinical pathways are a road map of patient management. The consideration of clinical guidelines during pathway development is highly recommended. But the transfer of evident knowledge (clinical guidelines) to care processes (clinical pathways) is not straightforward due to different information contents and semantical constructs. This article proposes a model-driven approach to support the development of guideline-compliant pathways and focuses the generation of ready-to-use pathway models for different hospital information systems. That way, best practice advices provided by clinical guidelines can be provided at the point of care and therefore improve patient care.