Ontology-based conceptual model for business process improvement method in complex information systems
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Date
2020
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Universiti Teknologi Malaysia
Abstract
Management of complex information systems is a difficult task and usually the degree of the complexity is raised by the many problems that need to be managed and solved. Healthcare information systems are generally considered as some of the most common and complex information systems, due to the big amount of data and processes that are generated in them hourly and on a daily basis. This is a very important and challenging field which needs continuous improvement. Knowledge representation contributes in facilitating the complexity of information systems and plays a significant role in improving the quality of overall healthcare services by ensuring access to the essential information. Due to these complexity and according to annual reports of the World Health Organization (WHO), related official associations: American Health Information Management Association (AHIMA), The American Medical Informatics Association (AMIA) and Health Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS) and recent studies, the healthcare domain still faces a considerable amount of challenges and quality problems; e.g., long waiting time lists, medical errors, extended length of stay and high costs. Business process improvement methods (BPIMs) comprise of one or more suitable approaches to deal with the aforementioned kinds of healthcare problems. However, BPIMs still need to be supported by other methods to achieve more improvements in terms of domain knowledge representation. Therefore, this study aims to propose a method which is based on a conceptual modeling point of view that can support existing BPIMs. This research adopts Design Science Research (DSR) as its research design methodology. The methodology contains six phases which represent the research design steps, from the problem identification phase to the communication phase. As a result, the design artefact, which is an ontology, namely Onto-BPIM has been proposed to cover the targeted improvement domain clearly in terms of offering meaningful understanding and representation of the domain knowledge, which can also be used as reference to support business process improvement (BPI) activities. The main contributions are in three areas of BPIM: i) information systems management, ii) ontology development, and iii) quality improvement in healthcare. Using Onto-BPIM has proven that the method yields an adequate and clear process view and is both reliable and useful when it comes to assisting BPIMs in the healthcare domain.
Description
Thesis (PhD. (Information Systems))
Keywords
Information resources management—Quality control, Medical care—Information technology, Big data—Industrial applications