Using FBM, DMN and BPMN to analyse and improve medical guidelines

Abstract

To improve the quality of health care in the Netherlands, medical guidelines are developed. These guidelines describe recommendations for medical specialists based on scientific research, complemented with expertise and experience of medical specialists. Such guidelines are described in texts of sometimes more than 100 pages. A hospital develops its own guidelines based on this national guideline. In a project at an academic hospital in the Netherlands, such a guideline was analyzed. The analysis covered a conceptual data model, a decision model and process model and all integration between these different models using FBM, DMN and BPMN, methodically orchestrated by cogNIAM. From this analysis, the local guideline was made more understandable by removing redundant information, replacing ambiguous definitions with unambiguous ones and resolving detected flaws and inconsistencies. The result of the analysis was also used to develop a software prototype that helps medical specialists in following the guidelines and improving them based on user data.