Process engineering: a necessary step to a better public health system

Area of Science:

• Public Health
• Systems Engineering
• Health Informatics

Background:

• The public health system, focused on population-level disease intervention and prevention, operates as a complex adaptive system with independent entities.
• Its dynamic nature, responding to regulations, health status changes, threats, and policy shifts, often obscures common underlying business processes.
• Increasing demand for interoperable health information systems highlights the need to understand these core processes.

Purpose of the Study:

• To recognize the commonality of business processes within the public health sector.
• To advocate for the application of systems engineering techniques to streamline and automate public health processes.
• To present a methodology for process engineering tailored for public health.

Main Methods:

• Analysis of the nature of the public health system.
• Evolution of a purpose-built methodology for process engineering in public health.
• Case study application of the methodology for developing requirements for public health laboratory information management systems.

Main Results:

• Identified common business processes within the diverse public health sector.
• Developed a methodology for process engineering applicable to public health.
• Demonstrated the methodology's utility through a case study for laboratory information systems.

Conclusions:

• Understanding and analyzing core public health business processes is crucial.
• Systems engineering techniques can be effectively applied to public health challenges.
• The developed methodology facilitates the creation of improved public health information systems.