Workflow Management, “the” challenge for health care

Nowadays businesses can’t exist without the use and support of ICT anymore. Business workflows are supported by ICT to gain efficiency and quality. The tendency is that more and more ICT systems are implemented. But supporting workflow by ICT systems isn’t always easy. This is especially the case in the health care sector were many ICT implementations in general tend to fail. Workflow Management is a widely adopted solution for the support of process redesign and management. But in the health care sector there is little or no knowledge about Workflow Management Systems (WfMS). The central question of this thesis is whether a WfMS could also work in health care organizations. Of course it isn’t as easy as just buying and implementing such a system, there are preconditions that have to be met first. The recovered preconditions will be discussed in the thesis. The Obstetric unit of the Erasmus MC was the setting of the research. The question was whether a WfM could be applied there. Furthermore a model for WfM in the Erasmus MC is presented, with the required preconditions which resemble important organizational changes. The paper will help system implementers, managers, executives and organisations to be more aware of needed organisational change(s) to meet the necessary precondition(s) so that systems such as a WfMS can be successful in a health care environment.