Purpose

In a rapidly changing environment, many health-care systems are forced to survive with rising costs and the need for proper resources utilization. To address the requirements for effective strategic planning, business process reengineering (BPR) is inevitable for health-care systems. This study aims to focus on the reengineering of central sterilization unit’s business processes to obtain performance improvement and efficiency. With the obtained new process design, it is expected to get standardization in all level of the central sterilization unit.

Design/methodology/approach

This paper presents a BPR method for modeling the system in health-care sector to improve the productivity of the sterilization process of surgical equipment. The case study is conducted in a large hospital in Istanbul, Turkey. First, “as-is” process is modeled and the problems are determined. Then, solution methods are developed and the target system (to-be process) is redesigned and the workflows of each phase are remodeled by using ARIS tool. Enterprise resource planning (ERP)-driven BPR is used to reengineer the current processes and the future processes are operated through the modeled ERP system. Finally, by using a statistical analysis, performance of the new process is compared with the existing process using the first data obtained from the case hospital.

Findings

In many sterilization services, the control procedures are rarely used. Thus, an ERP solution is developed to automate sterilization tasks and track down the information flow. With the ERP solution, it is possible to track in which dates, where and by whom the items are processed. On the other hand, in the sterilization process, the sets are used efficiently according to the last sterile dates of the items. Also, with the ERP system, it is possible to reduce unnecessary paper usage and this gives the hospitals the opportunity to be more ecological and sustainable. As a result, a centralized sterilization process with an IT support provides efficiency, economy and patient safety.

Originality/value

This study seeks for the potential benefits of an ERP implementation in health-care sector. As a result of this project, improvements in productivity, cost and quality are expected in sterilization processes because the new process design will bring automation, human-related error reduction and equipment tracking system. For this purpose, a business process management software is developed and implemented to the central sterilization unit so that the information flows more safely and the managers can track the results quickly by charts and reports.

中文翻译：

---

医疗保健行业的业务流程再造：中央灭菌单元的应用

目的

在瞬息万变的环境中，许多医疗保健系统被迫在成本上升和对适当资源利用的需求中生存。为了满足有效战略规划的要求，医疗保健系统不可避免地需要进行业务流程再造 (BPR)。本研究旨在重点关注中央灭菌单元业务流程的再造，以获得性能改进和效率。获得了新的工艺设计，有望在中央灭菌单元的各个层面得到标准化。

设计/方法/方法

本文提出了一种 BPR 方法，用于对医疗保健部门的系统进行建模，以提高手术设备灭菌过程的生产率。该案例研究是在土耳其伊斯坦布尔的一家大型医院进行的。首先，对“原样”流程进行建模并确定问题。然后，开发求解方法，重新设计目标系统（待处理），并使用 ARIS 工具重新建模每个阶段的工作流程。企业资源规划 (ERP) 驱动的 BPR 用于重新设计当前流程，未来流程通过建模的 ERP 系统进行操作。最后，通过使用统计分析，使用从案例医院获得的第一批数据，将新流程的性能与现有流程进行比较。

发现

在许多灭菌服务中，很少使用控制程序。因此，开发了 ERP 解决方案来自动化灭菌任务并跟踪信息流。使用 ERP 解决方案，可以跟踪处理项目的日期、地点和人员。另一方面，在消毒过程中，根据物品的最后消毒日期有效地使用套装。此外，借助 ERP 系统，可以减少不必要的纸张使用，这让医院有机会变得更加生态和可持续。因此，具有 IT 支持的集中式灭菌过程可提供效率、经济性和患者安全性。

原创性/价值

本研究寻求在医疗保健部门实施 ERP 的潜在好处。作为该项目的结果，灭菌过程的生产力、成本和质量有望得到改善，因为新的过程设计将带来自动化、减少人为错误和设备跟踪系统。为此，开发了业务流程管理软件并实施到中央灭菌单元，使信息流更安全，管理人员可以通过图表和报告快速跟踪结果。