Models and Architectures for the Enactment of Healthcare Processes

This chapter introduces the reader to the world of healthcare process management, focusing on modeling approaches and architectures for process enactment. First, the need and the application of process design and execution in healthcare is discussed. As for process modeling, the fundamentals of the Business Process Model and Notation, which is the leading standard for process design, are provided. Then, the relationships between organization, process and information perspectives involved in process management are discussed by means of examples taken from the clinical domain. The chapter ends with an overview of the architecture of a typical Workflow Management System (WfMS), also known as Business Process Engine (BPE), describing its software modules, components, and functionalities.