title: Guideline validation in multiple trauma care through business process modeling.
abstract: Clinical guidelines can improve the quality of care in multiple trauma. In our Department of Trauma Surgery a specific guideline is available paper-based as a set of flowcharts. This format is appropriate for the use by experienced physicians but insufficient for electronic support of learning, workflow and process optimization. A formal and logically consistent version represented with a standardized meta-model is necessary for automatic processing. In our project we transferred the paper-based into an electronic format and analyzed the structure with respect to formal errors. Several errors were detected in seven error categories. The errors were corrected to reach a formally and logically consistent process model. In a second step the clinical content of the guideline was revised interactively using a process-modeling tool. Our study reveals that guideline development should be assisted by process modeling tools, which check the content in comparison to a meta-model. The meta-model itself could support the domain experts in formulating their knowledge systematically. To assure sustainability of guideline development a representation independent of specific applications or specific provider is necessary. Then, clinical guidelines could be used for eLearning, process optimization and workflow management additionally.
authors.affiliation: Institute for Medical Informatics, Biometry and Epidemiology, Medical Faculty, University of Essen, Hufelandstr. 55, 45122 Essen, Germany. stausberg@uni-essen.de
authors.forename: Jürgen
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Stausberg
authors.forename: Hüseyin
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Bilir
authors.forename: Christian
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Waydhas
authors.forename: Steffen
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Ruchholtz
mesh_terms: D006801:Humans; D016347:Medical Records Systems, Computerized; D017146:Models, Organizational; D009104:Multiple Trauma / Q000628:therapy*; D017410:Practice Guidelines as Topic; D011787:Quality of Health Care; D012985:Software Design; D016526:Workload