Month: April 2015

I’ll keep this blog post short, so I can get it up on this, The Healthcare Business Process Management Blog, before Appian World 2015 ends (in about 5 minutes!). Don’t worry; I’ve got four or five more posts planned, all about ideas from Appian World 2015 (and how they can be implemented in healthcare).

First of all, Appian World just keeps getting bigger and bigger. This year there were over 1000 attendees.

— Charles Webster MD ()

I live in DC and have been to every Appian World (six? seven?) — to learn as much as I can about the kind of modern post-industrial BPM Appian represents so well. What I know about social, mobile, analytic, cloud-based BPM has been greatly influenced by my cumulative Appian World experiences.

The 'de rigueur' tweeted photo of my badge & brochure. Get ready 4 my usual deluge of high quality tweets!

— Charles Webster MD ()

At this Appian World, every speaker I heard, every slide I saw, every conversation in which I participated, confirmed what I’ve believed for many years. Modern Business Process Management is exactly the medicine healthcare and health IT needs to fix its workflow and process woes.

For example, if healthcare and health IT is to achieve what I sometimes call “workflow interoperability” (also task or pragmatic interoperability), it is going to have to go far beyond mere message exchange. It is going to need a layer of “orchestration”, a sort of “spider in the way” (see next embedded tweet) to knit together the wide variety of old and new data-oriented health IT systems. Watch for that post! 🙂

slide reminds me! > is “spider in the web” connecting different technologies

— Charles Webster MD ()

At this year’s Appian World, I saw whole bunch of things click into place, modern BPM’s relevance to every industry, and, very specifically, to the healthcare industry.

I judge every conference by how much it makes me want to write and tweet about it.

So, over the next few weeks, look for blog posts about…

• standing up high-volume healthcare claims processing,
• low-code approaches to empathic app workflow,
• learning from other industries’ use of BPM,
• importance of BPM to wearables and Internet Of Things,
• using BPM to achieve enterprise data integration and interoperability,
• and more!

By the way, below is one of my favorite slides from the entire conference. It shows the relationship between the emotional journey of customers and the back end business processes that BPM automates so well. It’s even a medical example (emergency medical bracelets for the home). I won’t say much more now, here, in this post intended to tickle your curiosity. Except this: I love the idea of empathic processes and workflow. I think it will be essential for improving patient experience and engagement. So be sure to watch for that specific future post on this blog.

Combine customer journey maps w/operational process improvement (emergency medical bracelet example)

— Charles Webster MD ()

Above slide credited to Clay Richardson (), from his excellent keynote.

The following isn’t a slide; it’s a paraphrased quote, from the VP of IS Strategy from Medicaid managed care leader, AmeriHealth Caritas. But it’s just about the pithiest summary of what modern Business Process Management platforms can do for healthcare.

Phillip Merrell, of AmeriHealth Caritas will aid provider transformation & change care management 2 achieve network excellence

— Charles Webster MD ()

Bookmark this blog post, as I’ll add link to my follow-on blog posts. Or…. One really, really good way to know when each of these posts have just been published, is to follow me on Twitter at !

I’ve been to every Appian World so far! (Is that five, six, or seven?) Anyone who follows me on Twitter () or reads my posts here or on the Healthcare Business Process Management Blog, know I’m a fan of modern Business Process Management tech in healthcare. While I go on about the need for healthcare to move to workflow platforms, Appian is not just a workflow platform, it’s that and more, it’s what they call a modern Work Platform. For more on this distinction, watch this space (or better yet, follow at my just advertised Twitter account).

I presented at Appian World 14 about Google Glass, and a prototype integration with Appian (for hospital environmental services task management). Here is my presentation, from my point of view! By the way, new and improved are coming!

What's it like to speak at ? 5 minutes of me on integration from my POV! via

— Charles Webster MD ()

There’s a big trend in healthcare right now, which is to systematically plunder (in a good way) the best ideas and practices and technologies of other industries. I’ve actually seen C-level hospital and health system positions specifically requiring NO healthcare experience! In this regard, every year I look forward to Appian World, because it brings to Washington, DC, the best of the best about leveraging process-aware technologies in industries outside of healthcare.

So, if you’re at Appian World this year, and want to talk shop about Appian-style BPM in healthcare care, tweet me! () or contact me through this blog.

And, if you’re not at Appian World, please check out the flood of tweets!

… And follow me! 🙂

PS Here’s a bit more video of me being interviewed (during Appian World, see mention) at WUSA9 here in DC. The interviewer is wearing my Glass!

My interview this AM w/ of re w/ mention at 0:45 cc via

— Charles Webster MD ()

Tuesday during HIMSS15 (great conference!) a special #HITsm tweetchat occurred during a live panel. I’d submitted a question about workflow, but didn’t think it had been accepted. Only Thursday did I realize the question had indeed been tweeted and discussed (here’s the Symplur transcript). Better late than never! Here are my tweeted responses to panelist answers to my question. I may write a complete blog post later, with links to my many other posts about healthcare workflow technology.

T5 Why does the HIT industry lag behind in terms of supporting workflow-friendly technology & process awareness? How do we fix?

— HL7 Standards ()

. my Q: how I missed it? 1 Need education 2 Hilite success stories 3 Recruit workflow tech

— Charles Webster MD ()

. IMO we should NOT wait 2 understand workflows B4 using workflow tech, cuz WF can be adjusted!

— Charles Webster MD ()

. that's POINT of workflow tech, since workflow is liquid, can implement WRONG WF but fix later

— Charles Webster MD ()

. step right direction, but will require workflow orchestration layer 4 anything byond solitary apps

— Charles Webster MD ()

. Absolutely, workflow tech can appear centered 2 all the stake holders, mooting arg patient- vs -provider centered

— Charles Webster MD ()

. does "all the tech" include workflow tech? Conceptual diff btwn WF vs WFtech c my

— Charles Webster MD ()

. "data silo" wrong metaphor, better metaphor is "workflow silo" static/tactical vs dynamic/strategic

— Charles Webster MD ()

. sorry not realize my Q included!

— Charles Webster MD ()

"workflow" cc:

— Ryan Lucas ()

. yes, & if drill down into actual practical pop health platforms, there's invariably workflow management sys

— Charles Webster MD ()

. tru workflow is business driver, but workflow TECH is tech driver, it is most natural bridge btwn both

— Charles Webster MD ()

. context/workflow yin/yang so WF king 2

— Charles Webster MD ()

Wow! Been a great HIMSS15 show. Prior to HIMSS I announced an intention to create my HIMSS15 Top Ten List Of Healthcare Workflow Movers & Shakers. I’d hoped to have individual rationales to tweet out one at a time during HIMSS. But I’ve written a couple and realize I can’t do justice t to every one of the ten “POWHIT”ers. I will circle back after HIMSS with ten rationales. BTW I intend no order, and in fact Twitter doesn’t allow Twitter lists to be sorted by users. I look forward to writing about each POWHITer. I hope some of you might look forward to reading about them. At least I hope the POWHITers themselves will! 🙂

POWHIT stands for People and Organizations improving Workflow with Health Information Technology. Over the years I’ve often used the Twitter hashtag.

Here’s link to the Twitter list itself: ! If you have any questions or quibbles, you may wish to read my rules! Or just wait until I explain why I selected the individuals and organization that I did.

As the leading proponent of process-aware technology in healthcare, I am especially excited to announce I’m working with Appian, the market leader in modern Business Process Management (BPM) software. I’ve enlisted Appian’s expertise and help to even more systematically spread the message of how modern workflow technology can make a significant impact for the healthcare industry.

If you follow me on Twitter or read my blog, you may know my personal workflow “Triple Aim”:

• Engage health IT leaders, professionals, and users about workflow and workflow tech.
• Highlight health IT vendors using workflow technology.
• Recruit into healthcare the very best workflow tech from the workflow industry.

Over the past five years, I’ve energetically engaged and highlighted, if growing ranks of healthcare ‘workflowistas’ is any indication. There’s been a remarkable surge in workflow tech mentions on HIMSS conference exhibitor websites: 2%, 4%, 8%, 16% and this year, 25%+ (may be higher than 25+, but there is so much activity in this area at HIMSS15, I ran out of time to compile the data this year!). If you follow me on Twitter or monitor the #HIMSS15 hashtag, you have seen the numerous kudos I’ve handed out.

What about the third component of my workflow triple aim: Recruiting? I spend a lot of time networking and attending conferences in the workflow tech industry. Mostly I learn, but I also present to workflow tech professionals, explaining healthcare and health IT unique needs. And I encourage workflow tech companies to aim high in healthcare.

During this same five period I attended the yearly Appian World conference in (or near) Washington, DC. I wasn’t a user, reseller, or a partner, in any sense. I was a fan. It was my good luck to live in in the same home metro region with the current leader in modern BPM technology. And every time I went Appian World, I talked about healthcare workflow. Appian World is coming up — April 27-29 — I’d love to see you there. Here is one of my early trip reports.

Then, back in 2013, I took my new Google Glass to Appian. I wanted to see how easy it might be to integrate some cool new wearable with a cool leading BPM work platform. You can read about the result of that collaboration. It was easy. And it was easy because creating custom workflow applications on platforms evolved from process management discipline is completely different from how health IT has designed, built, sold, and bought health IT.

If you can’t find any health IT applications that fit your needs and workflows, and you don’t want to create such health IT applications from scratch (meaning hiring programmers to write code) consider a “low code” approach.

• Design your app on a modern platform.
• Draw workflows in a editor without coding.
• Design forms with point-and clicks.
• Use the completed application over the Web.

Then push a button to generate intelligent workflow apps natively running on multiple mobile devices without doing any additional building or testing. Oh, one more thing, Appian integrates both private and public social media-style activity streams into these intelligent workflow applications better than anyone else.

I’ll publish more details later. I just wanted to get this blog post up and out, on the first day of the biggest and most influential annual health IT meeting.

Have a great HIMSS15 conference. And watch this space! That is, this blog and my Twitter account, .

Viva la custom workflow applications on platforms evolved from modern process management ideas and technologies!

P.S. Of course, I will continue to search for and champion all people and organizations improving workflow with health information technology. Look for my HIMSS15 Top Ten List Of Healthcare Workflow Movers & Shakers later during the HIMSS15 conference.