Modelling and Validation of Alarm Management Workflow in Healthcare Integrating IHE-PCD Profile and Coloured Petri Nets

The application of discrete event simulation modeling techniques for studying healthcare systems is a relatively new but rapidly growing field of research and service improvement. This paper discusses the application of discrete event simulation in modeling the complex relationship between Patient Care Device (PCD) in healthcare enterprises in an Alarm Communication Management (ACM) system for more efficient, integrated and validated implementation. In particular, we analyze and test healthcare processes in which a large number of different medical devices is used, at hospital departmental level with an alarm management system. Aiming at generality, the model does not refer to a specific healthcare context but is based on the general modeling schemes proposed in this field within the Integrating the Healthcare Enterprise (IHE) initiative. To this aim, we model and simulate an alarm management system implemented according to the IHE Technical Framework PCD ACM profile in a Colored Timed Petri Net framework. The model is used to test scenarios of alarm management of healthcare devices with different levels of workload and resources to demonstrate the potential of using Colored Timed Petri Net and simulation as cost effective methods for understanding the issues of healthcare operations management.