Clinical Pathway Management Device for Resource Overlap Resolution
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing clinical pathway management systems lack flexibility in responding to changes, particularly when hospital resource schedules are fully utilized, limiting the ability to modify treatment plans without disrupting other clinical pathways.
Innovation Solution
A clinical pathway management device that includes a database, reception, overlap determination, change plan generation, influence degree calculation, and pathway changing components, which assesses resource overlaps and generates plans to minimize influence on other pathways, allowing for flexible changes by reassigning resources and calculating the degree of influence based on parameters like treatment costs and medical staff attributes.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Adaptability or versatility
If the clinical pathway is changed when hospital resources are fully assigned to other pathways, then the flexibility to adapt to patient needs is improved, but resource conflicts and overlaps occur
Solution Approach 1:
The system performs preliminary overlap determination before finalizing pathway changes. The overlap determination portion checks whether changing the target pathway would cause resource conflicts with other pathways, and only allows changes when no overlaps are detected, preventing resource allocation issues before they occur.
Solution Approach 2:
The system provides feedback about resource overlap status to guide pathway modification decisions. When overlap is detected, the system informs users of the conflict, enabling them to adjust the change request or select alternative timing, thus maintaining resource allocation reliability while still allowing flexible changes when conditions permit.
2Ease of operation
If the clinical pathway is changed without considering other pathways, then the ease of modification is improved, but disruption to other pathways increases
Solution Approach 1:
The system performs preliminary overlap determination before allowing pathway changes. By checking resource schedules in advance and identifying potential conflicts with other pathways, the system prevents disruptions before they occur, maintaining ease of operation for non-conflicting changes while protecting other pathways from harm.
Solution Approach 2:
The overlap determination portion acts as an intermediary between pathway modification requests and the actual change execution. It mediates by checking for conflicts and either approving or blocking changes based on resource availability, thus enabling easy modification when safe while preventing disruption when risks exist.
Data Source
AI summary
In the clinical pathway management device, if a request for change that requires the change of the content of a clinical pathway is received, with reference to schedule data, it is determined whether or not there is an overlap between hospital resources assigned to a treatment included in a clinical pathway as a target of change and hospital resources assigned to a treatment included in other clinical pathways different from the clinical pathway as a target of change in a case where the clinical pathway is changed according to the request for change. In a case where there is no overlap, the clinical pathway is changed according to the request for change. In a case where there is an overlap because of the change of at least either the clinical pathway as a target of change or other clinical pathways described above, plural kinds of plans of change for avoiding the overlap are generated. Thereafter, a degree of influence, which is obtained by numerically expressing an extent of change made according to each of the plans of change, of each of the plans of change is calculated. Then, the clinical pathway is changed according to a plan of change with a minimal degree of influence.