A structured approach for enhancing clinical risk monitoring and workflow digitalization in healthcare

A multitude of studies have highlighted alarming data on healthcare adverse events and medical errors in many countries, including Italy. Many of these errors appear to be the result of non-compliance with good practices and organizational operating procedures, specified in ministerial directives and international standards. This paper describes the efforts of an Italian research project to propose a structured approach to healthcare process management, emphasizing clinical risk management. Using the Business Process Model and Standard Notation (BPMN), the project models clinical processes and integrates them into the clinical information system to identify process deficiencies, highlight compliance vulnerabilities, monitoring and managing clinical risks. The workflows’ digitalization, enabled the definition and calculation of several Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) for a long-term evaluation of the success of the modeled processes. In the experimental phase, the project allowed to identify areas significantly affected by operational deviations, enabling targeted actions to safeguard patient health and generate economic savings due to the reduction of legal actions against medical workers’ errors. The effects of an overall improvement on quality of care can be appreciated not only by patients but also by medical and administrative staff of the clinics.