Category: General
Many healthcare organizations assume once they’ve implemented a worklist, it will get the job done. Some may even believe they’ve implemented business process management.
But often, we find that it doesn’t work all that well for them, and it almost certainly isn’t as effective as an optimized BPM approach.
While vendors may use the terms workflow and worklist interchangeably, there are important differences. A worklist is a preset process embedded within a software used for a specific focus (for example, a billing software.) It is designed and determined by the software developer and changes require programmers and extra budget. A workflow is part of BPM -- and an important one -- and BPM goes far beyond the limitations of a work list and optimizes businesses on a macro level.
BPM is about designing processes that allow for effective task management, efficient escalation, and transparency into how well it’s working so that companies can continue to refine, improve, and produce better results.
Read on to learn more about the core differences, and why BPM is significantly more useful for improving processes across your organization.
Worklists are automation tools that allow for document and task flows. Basically, they’re all about routing the next task to the next person, from A to B. Most worklists use some form of automation and alerts, but are also document-centric, linear, unsophisticated, and inflexible. Plus, they are typically locked into one application and can’t be applied across all areas of your business.
Worklists route documents and associated tasks, but are largely unable to optimize the process or use complex logic to route items to people based on needed skill set. Since employees are not working smarter, limitations in the process are emphasized. Automating a broken process simply creates more errors, more bottlenecks and more problems.
Companies using worklists set by third-party vendors are often frustrated by the inefficiencies of the list, as insights from within the company cannot be implemented easily, and they are stuck working from external instructions telling them what to do.
The other crucial component that worklists lack is the ability to coordinate work across all resources. They may be able to tell a task where to go, but they aren’t able to shed any insight into which route performs best, why that route may have been better, or how to adjust in the future to deliver better results.
BPM, on the other hand, offers a holistic, in-depth approach to building (and rebuilding) your processes and workflows from the ground up. It builds on workflow automation to add customization and business intelligence that fuels a honed and streamlined operation. It’s a comprehensive evaluation of how well your business is running -- and exactly how to make it smoother and smarter.
BPM is a mixture of effective technology and an optimized approach, one based on analytics and data-driven insights. It’s a constant stream of monitoring and improvement that generates useful feedback for decision-makers, allowing them to amplify what works and change what doesn’t.
One of the core benefits is the customizable nature of BPM; perks such as dashboards and views that tell you what’s going on and help your employees identify the highest-priority work to complete next. Plus, it can be applied to or integrated with most business applications to keep one centralized resource to ensure your business is in the best shape possible.
In short, BPM is adapted to suit the needs of individual businesses, helping them define processes, track progress and enable future growth. Can you afford for your business to be governed by a set of rigid instructions that doesn’t meet your changing needs?
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