A BPMN-VSM based process analysis to improve the efficiency of multidisciplinary outpatient clinics

Multidisciplinary outpatient clinics are healthcare structures that group together a set of units dealing with patients who require a series of cares and medical examinations. They are generally characterised by very complex processes due to a high number of activities and resources and a large exchange of different types of flows between multiple stakeholders. For these organisations, the greatest challenge is providing timely cares expressed by close appointments as well as reduced lead time and homecomings. To reach this aim, we propose a systematic BPMN-VSM based process analysis approach in order to enhance efficiency. It operates in four steps: (i) modelling the Patient Care Delivery Process, (ii) mapping the Critical Patient Pathway (iii) outlining the bottlenecks and the possible causes of increased lead-times and homecomings, and (iv) identifying avenues for improvement. To assess the applicability of our approach, we conducted an action research in a Tunisian multidisciplinary outpatient clinic. The results show complementarities between the BPMN and VSM tools. Findings also reveal that the proposed approach was able to propose avenues for future improvement to remedy the identified inefficiencies.