Title: Systems engineering approach to healthcare performance analysis

Authors: Teresa Taurino; Dario Bellomo; Salvatore Roberto Lo Turco

Addresses: Department of Management and Production Engineering (DIGEP), Politecnico di Torino, Corso Duca degli Abruzzi 24, 10129 Torino, Italy ' Territorial Healthcare Agency of Asti, Via Conte Verde, 125-14100 ASTI, Italy ' Via Conte Verde, 125-14100 ASTI, Italy

Abstract: The objective of the paper is to present a method for analysing the performance of a territorial healthcare system. The proposed method has been developed by using the main concepts of the maintenance service of production systems, and transferring them into the healthcare services. To this aim, significant analogies have been recognised between a basic strategy for production system maintenance and the main actions to be done for patient healthcare. Based on this analogy, main key performance indicators (KPI) in industrial maintenance have been directly related to KPIs in healthcare. Then, a transfer of industrial maintenance actions, described by a specific ontology, has originated a corresponding ontology of main healthcare activities at the level of a territorial healthcare service system. The resulting ontology has been applied as a guide in conducting the analysis of the characteristics and performance of a regional healthcare system.

Keywords: healthcare system; process maintenance; performance evaluation; key performance indicator; KPI; essential level of assistance.

DOI: 10.1504/IJSSS.2017.083617

International Journal of Society Systems Science, 2017 Vol.9 No.1, pp.58 - 74

Accepted: 03 Oct 2016
Published online: 12 Apr 2017 *

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