A Framework for the Design of Web Service Based Clinical Management Systems to Support Inter and Intra Organizational Patient Journeys

The clinical management of premature and ill term babies is challenged by the necessity of several inter and intra organizational patient journeys. Premature and ill-term babies born in regional Australia and Canada must be moved to another hospital with Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) facilities. NICU babies requiring surgery must be moved to a Level IV NICU for surgery. Current clinical management supports the transfer of limited patient data via paper or telephone exchange. In this article a framework for the design of Web-service-based clinical management systems to support inter and intra organizational patient journeys is presented. A series of Web services are described and integrated and coordinated through BPEL processes enabling greater support for inter- and intra-organizational transfer of patient data. This framework is demonstrated through a NICU case study. A key benefit of this framework is that it enables the establishment of “on demand” patient journeys eliminating the need to establish permanent point-to-point connections.