BPM+ Health Virtual Coffee sessions
How BPM+ Health Complements FHIR

Presented by

Denis Gagne, CEO & CTO at Trisotech

Just a little bit of terminology setting, for those of you that are new to this group or to this terminology. So, we’re talking about two main concepts here: one is workflow automation, the other one is decision automation. By workflow automation we mean very broadly the technology than enables the orchestration of activities able to react to business events. And on the decision automation point of view, where we really mean technology that enables decisioning returning an answer given a particular set of inputs. And by the way, these can be with human in the loop or with no human in the loop. Normally we refer to them as knowledge workers or subject matter experts.

So within the context of the OMG, we have a set of standards that we will refer to using the moniker BPM+ and these include: DMN (the Decision Model and Notation), BPMN (the Business Process Model and Notation) and CMMN (the Case Management Model and Notation). And as their name kind of say, they all have a separate purpose. So, we have a separation of concerns here. They all share the “Model” and the “Notation” monikers, which means that they’re all languages with which you can create a deep models based on a visual notation. So, all three of them share that aspect. The difference is that DMN is really meant for capturing a decision, including decision tables and logical expression rules. BPMN is really more meant to capture processes or workflows in a prescriptive sequence of activities. CMMN is more meant to capture cases that is a context in which we’re going to react to events. So, this is basically it at a very high level. The differentiation between the three standards: what they share in common and what differentiates them.

Now, to the topic of today, I created this diagram highly influenced by a diagram that Bo Dagnall did before, and this is basically to provide the setup of how we see the complementary aspect. So, if you look at this hand here, we have the notion of data. And with the data, what our intent really is, it’s to aggregate all this data from various sources. Whether it’s from various EMRs, devices, or any other kind of sources. Interestingly enough is when we aggregate this data, if we add on top of this , then we get to computable data. So, we have data that is computable and that can lead to data automation. So, with FHIR^®, we gain a common schema, identity resolution, medical resources, and all these nice attributes that FHIR^® brings to the table. So, it gives us an environment where we can really manipulate data and use computable data around data automation. Then if we add CDS Hook, or other kind of hooks, then what we have is the data in the clinical context. And by having data in context, we obtain information. So, by adding this, we are in a mode of information automation where we have made the data that is provided, we have the context, and we have event awareness. So, we really have an information flow here that we can automate, and that’s where we think BPM+ comes into play. BPM+ brings you the orchestration of knowledge by adding the workflow and decision automation. So we gain tasks and activities, roles and responsibility, decisioning, case management, event orchestration, and we can even orchestrate AI and machine learning into that orchestration. Which leads us to the intelligent healthcare automation context that we want to achieve. So, this is the ground setting for the conversation of where I see how BPM+ complements FHIR^®. When I say “I”, I think it’s pretty much a vision shared by the BPM+ Health community here.

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