What BPM technology can do for healthcare process support

Abstract. Healthcare organizations are facing the challenge of deliver-ing personalized services to their patients in a cost-effective and efficient manner. This, in turn, requires advanced IT support for healthcare pro-cesses covering both organizational procedures and knowledge-intensive, dynamic treatment processes. Nowadays, required agility is often hin-dered by a lack of flexibility in hospital information systems. To over-come this inflexibility a new generation of information systems, denoted as process-aware information systems (PAISs), has emerged. In contrast to data- and function-centered information systems, a PAIS separates process logic from application code and thus provides an additional architectural layer. However, the introduction of process-aware hospi-tal information systems must neither result in rigidity nor restrict staff members in their daily work. This keynote presentation reflects on recent developments from the business process management (BPM) domain, which enable process adaptation, process flexibility, and process evolu-tion. These key features will be illustrated along existing BPM frame-works. Altogether, emerging BPM methods, concepts and technologies will contribute to further enhance IT support for healthcare processes.