Enabling coordination within medical settings: case of a maternity ward

Abstract

Purpose: This study evaluates the planning process issues in healthcare institutions that can be considered as a high risk environment. Most recent healthcare research has focused on methods mainly based on communication, rather than collaboration supports. Material Methods: We followed then a collaborative-based planning approach which constitutes an evolution of planning environment toward new shared workspaces supporting collaboration. Our work led us first, to analyse the related tasks in an Algerian maternity ward in order to highlight the vital collaborative medical tasks that need to be modelled. Results: the paper summaries basic design concepts of our collaborative planning system that is designed to make group interaction support flexible for care coordination and continuity. Conclusion: after development and test of our collaborative planning system, we noticed that our collaborative and planning system can increase awareness and hence decrease coordination breakdowns, reduce costs of information collecting and sharing. All these factors constitute a crucial aspect of an efficient management of a hospital.