Proposal of BPMN extension with a view to effective modeling of clinical pathways

Abstract

PurposeThe aim of the article is to propose BPMN extensions that facilitate the modeling of Clinical Pathways in a way that enables for various groups of users, the transfer of a much wider range of information in the form of process models without compromising their readability and usefulness.Design/methodology/approachThe paper uses the design science research methodology (DSRM) and covers phases of a design-oriented research project extending BPMN notation for clinical pathway modeling.FindingsThe article proposes extensions of BPMN in 5 areas, enabling standardization of the description of business processes of different natures and complexity and in turn meeting the needs and requirements of modeling clinical pathways and, more broadly speaking, knowledge-intensive business processes (kiBPs) in general. As shown by the evaluation carried out among medical personnel, the proposed extensions allow for the readable transfer of a considerably larger body of information relevant to the planned, conducted and assessed therapy (kiBPs) than the current BPMN 2.0 standard.Originality/valueThe BPMN extensions proposed in the article fill the gaps in this notation and do not require users to know many notations, which in practice is unrealistic. Defined extensions to the BPMN specification makes it possible to standardise the description of processes of different natures and levels of complexity. In this way, both simplified models (and views of models) dedicated to users unfamiliar with BPMN and models (or views) using advanced possibilities provided by BPMN can be based on one standard, even if they use only a small part of its possibilities.