Hospitalization time reduction in internal medicine wards with BPM

• Autor(a) principal: Soares, Pedro Filipe Gomes
• Data de Publicação: 2023
• Tipo de documento: Dissertação
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Texto Completo: http://hdl.handle.net/10071/29916
• topic: Business Process Management; Pesquisa em design cientifico -- Design Science Research DSR; Process redesign; Hospital length of stay; Otimização de processos; Internamento hospitalar

Reducing hospital stays is a key factor in optimizing healthcare resources and ensuring the best care for patients. The length of stay, in addition to the financial and logistical costs for the hospital organization, has a direct influence on the quality of life of patients. Using BPM methodology allows the optimization and continuous improvement of processes, having a history of success in application to different sectors of activity. In the health area, however, this methodology has a limited application, with little research into its holistic application to clinical processes and to the management of hospitalizations. On the other hand, the BPM methodology is obliged to respond to technological and behavioral changes to prove its relevance, something to which this research also aims to contribute. The present study proposes a redesigned and optimized process for admitting patients to Internal Medicine wards, reducing hospitalization time with the consequent organizational, financial and health benefits. To achieve this objective, the hospitalization processes in Internal Medicine units were modeled in hospitals in the Lisbon metropolitan area, Portugal, identifying common practices and existing differences, and from this existing model the BPM methodology was applied for process redesign and optimization. The DSR methodology was used with the resulting artifact being the optimized process. Conducting interviews with fifteen professionals allowed the modeling of existing processes and iterations to validate the choices that guided the construction of the artifact. BPM use to redesign and optimize the hospitalization process in Internal Medicine wards reduced hospital length of stay.