05-21-18

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Object Management Group Announces Field Guide to Shareable Clinical Pathways
May 23 webinar and June 18 event showcase how the Field Guide improves quality and efficiency across healthcare institutions

Needham, MA – May 21, 2018 – The Object Management Group® (OMG®), an international, open membership, not-for-profit technology standards consortium, announced today the publication of the “Field Guide to Shareable Clinical Pathways” Version 1.0. The Guide focuses on three OMG business process standards to represent clinical pathways that define distinct aspects of patient-care workflow and decision-making. For more information about the Guide, click here.

Most healthcare systems depend on diagrams and flow charts to document how clinical pathways should happen. These guidelines, limited in details, are often stored in binders or saved in desktop computers. Applying OMG process modeling standards creates a blueprint for shareable procedures across clinical institutions, thereby reducing clinical steps to simple computerized orders.

The Field Guide is based on three OMG standards: Business Process Model and Notation™ (BPMN™), Case Management Model and Notation™ (CMMN™) and Decision Model and Notation™ (DMN™). BPMN is a well-defined standard that creates workflow diagrams to promote a common understanding of their meaning by different participants. CMMN complements BPMN with additional capabilities for unstructured behaviors triggered and continuously influenced by the information flowing into the case. DMN provides an understandable table format to model the combinations of factors that must be considered for complex, clinical decisions.

According to Jane Shellum, section head, IT at Mayo Clinic, “Mayo Clinic is committed to managing clinical knowledge as a strategic asset. The use of OMG process standards plays an important role in faithfully representing and sharing clinical knowledge to enable the rapid dissemination and adoption of best practices.“

“The use of these three modeling standards, particularly BPMN, is well established in business,” said Robert Lario, co-chair of the OMG Healthcare Domain Task Force (HDTF), co-author of the Field Guide and enterprise architect at VHA Office of Knowledge Based Systems. “Presently, there are no consistent methods for pedantically representing clinical knowledge in these guidelines. The knowledge conveyed with current methods is at times ambiguous, incomplete and contrary. The purpose of the Guide is to apply standard techniques for business process modeling and decision modeling, proven in other industries, to healthcare to rapidly share and distribute high quality clinical knowledge and workflow practices across institutions. With these methods, not only are the guidelines readily shareable, but the models have clear computational semantics. This means they can be programmatically tested, verified and deployed to the healthcare enterprise. This in turn helps drive high quality of care and reduce costs.” 

“Healthcare expenses and complexity continue to increase the world-over. As new technologies and clinical practices evolve, the opportunities exist to improve both the care experience and care quality delivered. This is realized not within one institution, but among institutions by effectively sharing data and workflows as part of a collaborative care process,” said Kenneth Rubin, co-chair of the OMG HDTF, co-author of the Field Guide and director of standards for the VA Office of Knowledge Based Systems. “This Field Guide is a practical step toward realizing the great potential of healthcare IT’s role for accessible, efficient, and high-quality healthcare.”

The webinar, “Field Guide to Shareable Clinical Pathways using BPMN, CMMN and DMN in Healthcare,” will take place on Wednesday, May 23, 2018 at 11:00 a.m. ET. Denis Gagné, chair of the BPMN Model Interchange Working Group, will co-present with Robert Lario. A simple clinical model based upon the standards will be reviewed and shown executing. Register for the webinar.

Kenneth Rubin will moderate the complimentary half-day “Realizing Effective End-to-End Quality Management Within the Health Domain” on Monday, June 18, 2018 at the Hyatt Regency Boston Harbor hotel. Robert Lario will present the Guide in more detail from 3:35 p.m. to 4:20 p.m. Registration is open to the public. The public is also invited to stay for a complimentary Meet & Greet from 5:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. Refreshments will be served and there will be ample time for Q&A with the speakers and networking with other attendees.

A full list of contributors to the Field Guide can be found in the Acknowledgement section on page 5 of the Guide.

 


About OMG
The Object Management Group® (OMG®) is an international, open membership, not-for-profit technology standards consortium with representation from government, industry and academia. OMG Task Forces develop enterprise integration standards for a wide range of technologies and an even wider range of industries. OMG's modeling standards enable powerful visual design, execution and maintenance of software and other processes. Visit www.omg.org for more information.

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