Worklist handling in workflow-enabled radiological application systems

For the next generation integrated information systems for health care applications, more emphasis has to be put on systems which, by design, support the reduction of cost, the increase inefficiency and the improvement of the quality of services. A substantial contribution to this will be the modeling. optimization, automation and enactment of processes in health care institutions. One of the perceived key success factors for the system integration of processes will be the application of workflow management, with workflow management systems as key technology components. In this paper we address workflow management in radiology. We focus on an important aspect of workflow management, the generation and handling of worklists, which provide workflow participants automatically with work items that reflect tasks to be performed. The display of worklists and the functions associated with work items are the visible part for the end-users of an information system using a workflow management approach. Appropriate worklist design and implementation will influence user friendliness of a system and will largely influence work efficiency. Technically, in current imaging department information system environments (modality-PACS-RIS installations), a data-driven approach has been taken: Worklist -- if present at all -- are generated from filtered views on application data bases. In a future workflow-based approach, worklists will be generated by autonomous workflow services based on explicit process models and organizational models. This process-oriented approach will provide us with an integral view of entire health care processes or sub- processes. The paper describes the basic mechanisms of this approach and summarizes its benefits.