A business process improvement study in a specialized North American hospital

This paper describes a study of the registration and admission processes of patients in a specialized North American hospital. The methodology employed is comprised of extensive discussions with the hospital administration as well as observations of the current processes, detailed modeling and validation of the processes using specialized medical business process improvement software, medBPM®, identification of the sources of the current problematical issues, and recommendations for potential improvements. Various aspects of the registration and admission processes were analyzed and/or compared in detail such as the centralized versus decentralized registration systems, coordination of planning and scheduling of activities and their execution and the reduction of non-value added activities. The use of the specialized software, medBPM®, has proven itself to be a useful business process improvement tool in this study. Following the analysis, recommendations have been made to modify processes and procedures that should result in improved patient satisfaction, streamlining of the workflow and reduction of non-value added work. The implementation stage will be taking place at a later time.