Modeling ad-hoc medical imaging workflows with BPEL4WS

Web services workflows are increasingly gaining attention. With the advent of emerging standards such as the Business Process Execution Language for Web Services (BPEL4WS) medical organizations are investigating the options for modeling ad-hoc workflows. In this paper we analyze a highly relevant ad-hoc workflow in the medical imaging domain: the second opinion workflow. Since this workflow, by its nature, involves other (increasingly ubiquitous) information systems (e.g. imaging equipment), it may serve as a test candidate for the applicability and suitability of BPEL4WS in the medical imaging domain. The workflow model covers implementation relevant aspects of the DICOM and HL7 protocol while maintaining an abstract domain model. The paper provides a separation of a basic workflow and the extended ad-hoc workflow. Further it abstracts the communication protocols by implementing sub-workflows for the service interfaces. The paper also analyzes mapping problems between the workflow and the communication layer and points out further ad-hoc workflow specifications for the medical imaging domain.