Guidelines and workflow models

A heterogeneous community is developing computerized methods and systems for supporting health care processes. One approach focuses on assuring the quality of care by delivering decision support to care providers based on clinical knowledge, and the other focuses on supporting management of routine medical actions, such as ordering laboratory tests and medications or scheduling patient visits. The first community is more academic, and studies classical clinical decision support, while the second originated in industry, and focuses on application and adaptation of business process management and mining techniques to the healthcare domain. Both of these approaches have made important achievements, yet their integration is far from being realized. In this chapter, we follow a life-cycle approach, reviewing the contributions of the two communities mentioned, by considering the stage of the life cycle that each achievement addresses: from knowledge acquisition to knowledge (process) modeling and specification, validation and verification, enactment, process mining and improvement, and sharing of executable guideline knowledge. We stress the potential and achievements made in integration of guideline and workflow knowledge, and discuss the success stories and limitations, and the opportunities for future research.