IT support for healthcare processes - premises, challenges, perspectives

Healthcare processes require the cooperation of different organizational units and medical disciplines. In such an environment optimal process support becomes crucial. Though healthcare processes frequently change, and therefore the separation of the flow logic from the application code seems to be promising, workflow technology has not yet been broadly used in healthcare environments. In this paper we elaborate both the potential and the essential limitations of IT support for healthcare processes. We identify different levels of process support in healthcare, and distinguish between organizational processes and the medical treatment process. To recognize the limitations of IT support we adopt a broad socio-technical perspective based on scientific literature and personal experience. Despite of the limitations we identified, undeniably, IT has a huge potential to improve healthcare quality which has not been explored by current IT solutions. In particular, we indicate how advanced process management technology can improve IT support for healthcare processes. 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.