Extending BPMN 2.0 for intraoperative workflow modeling with IEEE 11073 SDC for description and orchestration of...

Surgical workflow management in integrated operating rooms (ORs) enables the implementation of novel computer-aided surgical assistance and new applications in process automation, situation awareness, and decision support. The context-sensitive configuration and orchestration of interoperable, networked medical devices is a prerequisite for an effective reduction in the surgeons' workload, by providing the right service and right information at the right time. The information about the surgical situation must be described as surgical process models and distributed to the medical devices and IT systems in the OR. Available modeling languages are not capable of describing surgical processes for this application.

In this work, the BPMN^SIX modeling language for intraoperative processes is technically enhanced and implemented for workflow build-time and run-time. Therefore, particular attention is given to the integration of the recently published IEEE 11073 SDC standard family for a service-oriented architecture of networked medical devices. In addition, interaction patterns for context-aware configuration and device orchestration were presented.

The identified interaction patterns were implemented in BPMN^SIX for an ophthalmologic use case. Therefore, the examples of the process-driven incorporation and control of device services could be demonstrated.

The modeling of surgical procedures with BPMN^SIX allows the implementation of context-sensitive surgical assistance functionalities and enables flexibility in terms of the orchestration of dynamically changing device ensembles and integration of unknown devices in the surgical workflow management.