Process Modelling (BPM) in Healthcare – Breast Cancer Screening

Breast cancer is a malignant epithelial neoplasm and it is a public health problem that has high incidence and mortality in women. Focusing the clinical performance on processes is proving to be the way to improve morbidity and mortality statistics. Business process management (BPM) is a management field that improves and analyzes business processes according to organizations’ strategies. The early diagnosis of breast cancer is of great importance since it will enable more conservative treatments and a longer disease-free survival. Organized oncology screening programs, with all elements properly prepared, revealed to be more efficient than the opportunistic screenings. BPM usage will enable optimize and manage all processes from the screening until the diagnosis and treatment. The aim of this study is identification and modelling of BPM processes for the healthcare sector, namely, for Portuguese organized breast cancer screening. To achieve this goal, it was required the identification of the main processes by an interview to the employees and the development of “As-Is” diagrams. Some of the problems in a macroscopic way were detected and improvement suggestions were made.