International Journal of Medical Informatics (2005) 74, 335—344 Mapping care processes within a hospital: from theory to a web-based proposal merging enterprise modelling and ISO normative principles Pascal Staccini a,* , Michel Joubert b , Jean-Franc ¸ois Quaranta c , Marius Fieschi b a D´ epartement d’Information et d’Informatique M´ edicale, Centre Hospitalier Universitaire de Nice, Hˆ opital Cimiez, 4 Avenue Reine Victoria, BP 1179, 06003 Nice Cedex 1, France b LERTIM, Facult´ e de M´ edecine, Universit´ e de la M´ editerran´ ee, Marseille, France c Coordination des Vigilances Sanitaires et de la Gestion des Risques, Centre Hospitalier Universitaire de Nice, France Received 2 November 2003; received in revised form 12 July 2004; accepted 14 July 2004 KEYWORDS System analysis, methods; Hospital information systems; Process assessment; Health care quality; Access; Evaluation Summary Today, the economic and regulatory environment, involving activity- based and prospective payment systems, healthcare quality and risk analysis, trace- ability of the acts performed and evaluation of care practices, accounts for the current interest in clinical and hospital information systems. The structured gather- ing of information relative to users’ needs and system requirements is fundamental when installing such systems. This stage takes time and is generally misconstrued by caregivers and is of limited efficacy to analysts. We used a modelling technique de- signed for manufacturing processes (IDEF0/SADT). We enhanced the basic model of an activity with descriptors extracted from the Ishikawa cause-and-effect diagram (methods, men, materials, machines, and environment). We proposed an object data model of a process and its components, and programmed a web-based tool in an object-oriented environment. This tool makes it possible to extract the data dictionary of a given process from the description of its elements and to locate doc- uments (procedures, recommendations, instructions) according to each activity or role. Aimed at structuring needs and storing information provided by directly in- volved teams regarding the workings of an institution (or at least part of it), the process-mapping approach has an important contribution to make in the analysis of clinical information systems. © 2004 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved. * Corresponding author. Tel.: +33 4 92 03 41 36; fax: +33 4 92 03 41 09. E-mail address: staccini.p@chu-nice.fr (P. Staccini). 1. Introduction Continuous quality management programmes and process-oriented reengineering of care activities 1386-5056/$ — see front matter © 2004 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.ijmedinf.2004.07.003