Cristina Mazzoleni¹ , Mauro De Vito², Silvia Panzarasa³, Silvana Quaglini²

¹FSM
² Dipartimento di Informatica e Sistemistica, Università di Pavia, Pavia, Italy
³Consorzio di Bioingegneria e Informatica Medica, Pavia, Italy

We describe a research carried out within the neuro-rehabilitation department of the “Salvatore Maugeri” hospital based in Pavia, where communication and organization problems were identified. A well known solution to enhance complex organizations performance are Workflow Management Systems. According to the Workflow Management Coalition they are systems that define, create and manage the execution of workflows, according to a process definition. In the medical field we talk about “Careflow” and processes are described on the basis of the best available medical knowledge and specify which tasks need to be executed, in which order and by which role. Thus, our work consists in designing, installing and evaluating a Careflow Management System (CFMS) to solve the above mentioned problems. A fundamental assumption in performance technology, as well as in development of instructional systems such as CFMS, is that any support system a person receives, should focus on enhancing this job performance. As a consequence, determining what a person must know and must do, in order to carry out a specific job, becomes a key to developing these systems.