Flow Charts for Workflows

Workflow Examples

The generic workflow immediately below was designed to apply to inpatient and outpatient care, including managing population health; pilot project participants used it in their efforts.

The purpose of presenting the workflow as a process flow is to help orient stakeholders to the opportunities to apply CDS interventions to improve the targeted outcome. The backbone is an idealized model - actual workflows may include slightly different activities or sequences. Users are welcome to ignore boxes or reorder them as they document their target-focused CDS configuration.

Note that there are samples of CDS workflow interventions in the rounded boxes below the square-edged boxes to help you identify CDS configurations that are currently in place, as well as those that are potentially promising, but not yet implemented.

The Collaborative also developed another draft workflow backbone intended to apply more specifically to the outpatient setting (see second diagram below) - and populated it generically for the 'ABCS' targets (Aspirin use, BP and Cholesterol control, Smoking cessation) in the Million Hearts cardiovascular risk reduction initiative. Although not (yet) used by Collaborative participants, you might find this outpatient-focused workflow backbone useful in your efforts.

In some cases it might be helpful to create a workflow diagram that's anchored by care delivery team roles rather than generic workflow steps. Below is an example of how such a process flow diagram might look. These diagrams can be created by various flowcharting tools.

From: Osheroff, Teich, Levick et al. Improving Outcomes with Clinical Decision Support: an implementer's guide. Second edition. HIMSS. 2012.

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