Managing Complex Patient Journeys in Healthcare

Abstract

Healthcare services are increasingly being digitized for greater flexibility and efficient sharing of information. There is also increased awareness among healthcare providers that they must consider their services from the perspective of the patient. To offer a coherent patient journey and efficient treatment, healthcare providers need a structured overview of their service processes and how these affect the patient journey. This chapter introduces customer journey modeling language (CJML) to support the design, management, and analysis of complex patient journeys. Through two case studies, we describe how CJML has been utilized for a shared overview of patient journeys, improvement work, internal training, and knowledge sharing. The first case study was carried out with DIPS, a supplier of eHealth systems to Norwegian hospitals. Here, CJML was used to support the documentation and rollout of a new generation of tools for surgery planning, a complex and resource-intensive process during which critical information is exchanged over time among a range of actors. The second case study was conducted at Oslo University Hospital. Cross-functional teams used CJML to document the patient journey associated with cervical cancer as the basis for improvement work. The two case studies demonstrate how CJML supports healthcare service design through a common understanding of the patient journeys among stakeholders and by visualizing the workflows and actors involved. Although several weaknesses in CJML remain to be resolved, the case studies suggest the benefit of a model-based approach in two regards: first, as an effective communication tool to unite medical, technical, and administrative expertise and second to enhance the patient focus throughout the improvement and digitization of health services.