Specialization of Business Process Model and Notation Applications in Medicine - A Review

Process analysis and process modeling are a current topic that extends to many areas. This trendof using optimization and modeling techniques in various specific areas has led to the question of howwidespread these approaches are overall in medical specializations. We compiled a list of 272 medicaldisciplines that we used as a search string with the Business Process Model and Notation (BPMN) fora Web of Science database search. Thus, we found a total of 485 documents that we subjected to theexclusion criteria. We analyzed the remaining 108 articles using bibliometric and content analyses tofind answers to three research questions. This systematic review was carried out using the procedureproposed by Kitchenham and following the Preferred Items of the Systematic Review and Meta-AnalysisReport (PRISMA). Due to the broad scope of the medical field, it was no surprise that for almost 85% of thesought-after medical specializations, we could not identify any publications in the given database whenapplying the BPMN. We analyzed the impact of upgrades to the BPMN on publishing. The keywordanalysis showed a diametrical difference between the authors’ keywords and the so-called “KeywordsPlus”, and we categorized the publications according to the purpose of applying the BPMN. However,the growing interest in combining BPMN with other approaches brings new challenges in practice.