Healthcare Chain Workflow Management by Use of IT: Minitrack Introduction

Patient visits various organizations or units within organizations to get proper diagnosis and treatment. The role of healthcare workflowmanagement by use of IT is to adjust the contributions of those organizations or units in terms of timing, quality and functionality. Some of these difficulties can be traced back to the heterogeneous nature of healthcare organizations. Professionals require a certain degree of autonomy, whilst workflow management requires a certain degree of standardization. Organizations or units need goals that fit to their specific practice, workflow management requires cooperative goals, or at least, goals that do not conflict. Also, standardization is needed to make full mutual adjustment of organizations possible, even though such standardization may unnecessarily complicate the way of working. As a result, a dedicated business transformation may be necessary. Healthcare organizations have to rethink their boundaries and have to make strategic alliances to be able to cope with the changes in the environment.