Applying UML to the Development of Medical Care Process Management System for Nursing Home Residents

Taiwan has been recognized by World Health Organization (WHO) as an “elderly” country in 1993 since its elderly (65 or older) population ratio was over 7%. Due to the physiological and psychological degeneration, the elderly always has a higher possibility of suffering from chronic diseases. Chronic patients, including the elderly suffering from chronic diseases, have burdened their families with the long-term medical-care need. Until recently, the emergence of nursing homes has successfully alleviated the heavy burden on chronic patients’ families. A nursing home provides various professional medical-care services to its residents (i.e., patients of the nursing home) by doctors, nursing specialists, nurses, rehabilitation doctors, social workers, and occupational therapists. Each resident is indeed a unique case to a nursing home. As a result, the medical-care process management has become one of the most important factors for improving the medical care quality of a nursing home. This research took the Chang-Gung Nursing Home as an example and applied Unified Modeling Language (UML) to analyze corresponding medical care processes. A medical care process management system was developed and implemented for the Chang-Gung Nursing Home.