Process-Driven Data Communication in Healthcare

Along with the development of medical technique, workflow management becomes more and more important and workflow-based system is increasingly becoming the next generation of medical information system. Traditional systems are data-driven and medical processes are realized through data exchange; while workflow-based systems are Process-Driven, data communication is controlled by process. In this paper, the Process-Driven data communication in healthcare environment is introduced. It is embodied in two stages in workflow life-cycle: design-time workflow definition and dynamic run-time implementation. In design-time, IHE framework is taken as an important reference and a series of mapping principles between IHE framework and workflow models are provided. Workflow root level model and data communication model repository are the two main outputs in this stage. In run-time, data communication models are dynamically chosen and associated to workflow root level model.