title: Developing a Comprehensive Model of Intensive Care Unit Processes: Concept of Operations.
abstract: This study aimed to use a systems engineering approach to improve performance and stakeholder engagement in the intensive care unit to reduce several different patient harms.
  
  
  
  We developed a conceptual framework or concept of operations (ConOps) to analyze different types of harm that included 4 steps as follows: risk assessment, appropriate therapies, monitoring and feedback, as well as patient and family communications. This framework used a transdisciplinary approach to inventory the tasks and work flows required to eliminate 7 common types of harm experienced by patients in the intensive care unit. The inventory gathered both implicit and explicit information about how the system works or should work and converted the information into a detailed specification that clinicians could understand and use.
  
  
  
  Using the ConOps document, we created highly detailed work flow models to reduce harm and offer an example of its application to deep venous thrombosis. In the deep venous thrombosis model, we identified tasks that were synergistic across different types of harm. We will use a system of systems approach to integrate the variety of subsystems and coordinate processes across multiple types of harm to reduce the duplication of tasks. Through this process, we expect to improve efficiency and demonstrate synergistic interactions that ultimately can be applied across the spectrum of potential patient harms and patient locations.
  
  
  
  Engineering health care to be highly reliable will first require an understanding of the processes and work flows that comprise patient care. The ConOps strategy provided a framework for building complex systems to reduce patient harm.
authors.forename: Mark
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Romig
authors.affiliation: From the Johns Hopkins Medicine Armstrong Institute for Quality and Patient Safety.
authors.forename: Steven P
authors.initials: SP
authors.lastname: Tropello
authors.forename: Cindy
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Dwyer
authors.forename: Rhonda M
authors.initials: RM
authors.lastname: Wyskiel
authors.affiliation: Applied Physics Laboratory, and.
authors.forename: Alan
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Ravitz
authors.affiliation: Applied Physics Laboratory, and.
authors.forename: John
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Benson
authors.affiliation: Department of Anesthesia and Perioperative Care, University of California, San Francisco, San Francisco, California.
authors.forename: Michael A
authors.initials: MA
authors.lastname: Gropper
authors.forename: Peter J
authors.initials: PJ
authors.lastname: Pronovost
authors.forename: Adam
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Sapirstein
mesh_terms: D003142:Communication; D003695:Delivery of Health Care / Q000592:standards*; D006801:Humans; D007362:Intensive Care Units / Q000592:standards*; D011787:Quality of Health Care / Q000592:standards*; D018570:Risk Assessment