Author: pvgorp

Master Thesis defense by Steven Dassen

Title

BPMN 2.0 in practice: The usefulness of extended constructs in a business environment.

Abstract

Many studies are devoted to the theoretical capabilities of the workflow language BPMN, but not much is known about the actual practical use of BPMN in a business environment. Recker’s research (2010) concluded that business analysts barely use extended constructs in their business models, so they only use a core set of constructs (basic constructs). He questioned whether the extended constructs have an added value when used in industrial business process models. The research
objective of this study is to examine the influence of the extended constructs in BPMN 2.0 with regard to the understandability and correctness of a process model for practitioners in the healthcare domain.

To investigate this objective a theoretical analysis and an experiment were conducted. The theoretical analysis was based on the peri-operative process in hospitals. NICTIZ1, an organisation which focuses on process optimisation in the healthcare domain, delivered the textual description (guidelines) of this process. A part of the process (pre-operative process) was already modelled by business practitioners with BPMN (NICTIZ model). To examine the influence of the different
constructs, two different versions of the peri-operative process were modelled by the researcher, a model with only basic constructs (basic version) and a model with the full set of constructs (extended version). To measure and compare the understandability of the models, the complexity metrics for business process models were used (Gruhn & Laue, 2006). The correctness (level of correct behaviour) of the models was analysed by reproducing the state spaces of the models and illustrating
the behaviour of the models via tokens. These state spaces were compared with the guidelines.

The theoretical analysis showed that the models with the full set of constructs were more understandable than the models with only basic constructs based on the results of the complexity metrics. Moreover, the state spaces showed how the extended constructs can improve the correctness of a model. The experiment measured the actual effectiveness of the various constructs in BPMN based on the Method Evaluation Model (Moody, 2003). The experiment contained a test that consisted of
different questions related to the extended constructs to assess the factors of interest empirically. The purpose of the test was to examine the participants’ understandability and modifiability (ability to modify a model correctly) regarding the constructs (basic/extended). The focus in the experiment was solely on the constructs, not the process. The participants of the experiment were business analysts from the healthcare domain. A workshop, which explained the behaviour of several constructs, was constructed to examine whether training improved the results of the participants. Two different versions of the test were constructed to see whether the results were not test specific. The results of the tests were analysed and hypotheses were tested using the independent t-test. The experiment showed that the results of the test were not test specific (hypothesis 1). Also, it showed that the workshop did not have a significant effect on the results of the participants (hypothesis 2). Furthermore, it showed that practitioners do not encounter more difficulty understanding (hypothesis 3) or modifying (hypothesis 4) models with extended constructs compared to similar models with only basic constructs.

Online Access

Get the PDF from the TU/e library

Siemens wint epd-aanbesteding Erasmus MC en UMC Groningen

Today in the popular press (ZorgVisie):

Siemens is met Soarian als beste uit de gezamenlijke ziekenhuisinformatiesysteem (ZIS) / epd-aanbesteding gekomen van het Erasmus MC en UMC Groningen. Zo melden verschillende anonieme bronnen aan Zorgvisie ict.

For related results from our IS group, check the master thesis by Michel Koeken (project completion: Dec. 2012)! The thesis describes trends in the tenders for the HIS/EHR Procurements of the Dutch academic hospitals.

Our (IS-)HEART is Pounding

Each first and third Friday of the month, our healthcare cluster organizes so-called IS-HEART sessions. Originally, in these sessions we were primarily about discussing papers (IS-HEART stands for the Information Systems Healthcare Reading Team). Since recently, we are inviting our students to present their progress in these sessions. The result is that the sessions have become much more lively and all researchers enjoy to learn through our students many practicalities from real-life healthcare analysis and redesign studies. Also, practitioners attend our IS-HEART session too. Attached to this post, you find some pictures from last week’s session (the session from January 2013, week 3).

Please join us in one of our future sessions: students who wish to present are encouraged to contact us and anyone is welcome to join the (discussion) audience!

Pre-Announcement: Arthur Wasylewicz will speak about GASTON

We will soon have an invited talk by Arthur Wasylewicz, an expert in the CDS system from the Catharina Hospital, Eindhoven. Arthur is a pharmacist researcher and has (amongst others) been involved in GASTON projects that go from pure medical requirements engineering to the actual system implementation. In order to focus his talk, we are calling for your input: please let us know which aspects you are most interested in.

We will soon after fix the date and topic of the talk.

“Scriptieprijs”: award for innovative master theses on eHealth

To all students that are finalizing their master thesis or BEP project in our IS group: please constact your mentor concerning the Scriptieprijs from Stichting Digitalezorg.nl en ZonMw.

Students supervised by Pieter Van Gorp (see picture) have probably seen the related wall posters various times already. Now it is time to act: submissions are due next month.
Continue reading “Scriptieprijs”: award for innovative master theses on eHealth

Additional presentation planned for this week’s IS-HEART session

As announced earlier, this Friday one group of students will present their results related to a project at the emergency department of the MMC.

We proudly announce today that another group will give a presentation as well. Therefore, we will have two presentations: one from 12:30 to 13:00 and one from 13:00 to 13:30.

Title: Wage labor and partnerships in health care.

Abstract:
The health care system in the Netherlands works with specialists in wage labor and partnerships. The focus lies on the differences between these two systems. In the presentation these systems are evaluated using a model.

Master Thesis Defense by Michel Koeken on HIS/EHR Procurement

Today, Michel Koeken has defended his master thesis. The thesis relates to a project conducted in collaboration with Siemens and provides valuable insights into the HIS procurement methods of Dutch academic hospitals.

Thesis title

Identifying and ranking the selection criteria in European tenders regarding the procurement of HIS/EHR systems in Dutch academic hospitals.

Management summary (excluding tables)

The thesis focused on the procurement of Hospital Information System / Electronic Health Record (HIS/EHR) systems at Dutch academic hospitals. As Dutch academic hospitals are considered to be a public institution and the value of the procurement of a HIS/EHR system exceeds the threshold value of €200,000 they are obliged by the BAO (Besluit Aanbestedingsregels voor Overheidsopdrachten) to conduct a European tender. The BAO is the Dutch implementation of the European guideline 2004/18/EG.

Each European tender contains a Research For Proposal (RFP). The RFP provides a detailed set of requirements of what the academic hospital wants to acquire and the score model that the academic hospital will use to evaluate the proposals of the vendors. The detailed set of requirements is divided into subtopics and these subtopics are considered as the selection criteria. The score model states how much points can be scored by the vendors by fulfilling a specific selection criterion. The vendor with the highest score and therefore the most economically advantageous offer (i.e. best price-quality ratio) wins the tender. In The Netherlands are three European tenders conducted by the Dutch academic hospitals in order to acquire a HIS/EHR system. All three European tenders were won by different vendors and this is interesting when one take into account that:

  • a vendor had to be selected through a strict tendering process which is based on the three principles (equal treatment, transparency, and non-discrimination) and therefore ensures for total transparency since all decisions are open for involved parties, no possibility for negotiation, and an equally review of every vendor;
  • the Dutch academic hospitals did not differ that much;
  • and there were only five (six at the time of the first two European tenders) available vendors from which the Dutch academic hospitals could choose from.

One would expect that at least two out of the three European tenders were won by the same vendor, but this was not the case. Therefore it is interesting to analyze these European tenders to investigate how Dutch academic hospitals used the European tenders to come to their results.

To answer the raised issue the thesis started with analyzing the three score models in the RFPs in order to identify and rank the selection criteria in terms of importance. The three included RFPs were those from the European tenders conducted by Leiden University Medical Center + University Medical Center Utrecht, University Medical Center St. Radboud, and Erasmus Medical Center + University Medical Center Groningen. This analysis showed that the three European tenders could not be compared one on one as they used slightly different terminology and wording for their selection criteria. This problem was tackled by selecting one European tender as the reference tender and the selection criteria of the other two European tenders were matched with the selection criteria of the reference tender. This matching was done by two vendor experts and followed the two round Delphi method (Skulmoski, Hartman, & Krahn, 2007). Now the three European tender could be compared as they contained the same selection criteria. The comparison showed that the European tenders scored their selection criteria differently.

As academic hospitals are often an example for general hospitals this identification and ranking could be an important insight for general hospitals. It is even possible that general hospitals use this as a blueprint for determining their own selection criteria. Obviously also other academic hospitals can use this insight to their advantage and consultancy companies can use it in advising their clients.

The differences between the percentages were analyzed with the help of a vendor expert and as the tenders occurred sequentially trends were determined. It is important to state that the trends could be based on coincidence as there were only three available data sets. Nonetheless it is interesting and useful to discuss the possible trend and especially the most important ones.

The possible trends can be beneficial for every stakeholder in The Netherlands or elsewhere as they show which topics are hot or not. Vendors could use it to determine their business strategy, the consultancy companies can advise their clients about it, and the hospitals can take it into account in their procurement processes.

The full thesis text can be downloaded here. Michel also provided a Powerpoint file with an embedded audio recording of his (trial) presentation.