Having presented my methodology in graphical form, I want to share the concepts as mathematical equations to clarify my approach further.
Here is the first equation: Work in a Process is equal to the amount of work done by each person contributing to performing the process. This process may include 1 or more people but here we are focused on the sum of the work done by every person.
The second equation addresses Workflow. My colleague Tom Koulopoulus, author of the book titled “The Workflow Imperative”, defines workflow as “a tool set for the proactive analysis, compression, and automation of information-based tasks and activities.” He further described it as an information factory, or more specifically, a process factory.
For our purposes, think of workflow as the stepwise activities or processes a person does to complete their day’s work. Here we are describing the work of each person to complete a process. This is purely a description of the work, not a measurement of the effort.
Our third equation is Total Work Effort. This is a summation of the work done be each person in a process. To measure this work you add the work of each person in a process participating in the completion of one single process.
Our fourth equation is Patient Journey. This describes each of the processes that a patient passes through or experiences during their care. The processes are culmination of the work done by each person contributing to each single process of the patient’s journey.
My firth equation and last equation is Patient Experience. This measures the patient’s perception of their care plus the clinical and financial outcomes for the patient during their patient journey.
While I have expressed these concepts as equations, I do not suggest that these can be measured. That would require choosing metrics that can be calculated, which is impractical as each organization needs to choose metrics that are relevant to that organization’s specific goals and objectives. I share these equations as a way for you to think about the relationship between processes and workflows, and the inputs – the work of staff – to achieve outcomes such as clinical, financial, and patient experience.
I look forward to your thoughts so please put them in this post and subscribe to my other video series Future-Primed Healthcare on my Dr Barry Speaks channel on YouTube. Thanks for your time today.
