1. Examples of flowcharts
- In-Office Prescribing - Paper System (PDF, 22KB)
- Prescription Renewal Request - Paper System (PDF, 25KB)
2. Why and how do we assess workflow using flowcharts when we are determining our clinic’s health it system requirements?
A flowchart provides a meaningful visualization of workflow by:
- conveying the sequence and interactions of activities and tasks and thus clarifying key work processes,
- identifying who performs what activities and tasks,
- recognizing activities and tasks that should be performed by another person, and
- identifying unnecessary or non-value-added activities and tasks that you might choose to eliminate.
3. What will we do with the flowcharts we create?
Flowcharting will help you identify the work processes your health IT system must support. You accomplish this by:
- including the work processes in your request for proposal and
- requiring that the key work processes are supported by the system.
Flowcharting will also help you identify tasks and processes that can become more efficient with the use of the health IT application.
4. What are the benefits of flowcharting workflows at this point?
Because of the widely varied and multiple tasks performed in your clinic, you can easily overlook potentially negative consequences that may occur after health IT system implementation. The details of your workflows as captured and conveyed in flowcharts provide you useful information that will aid in vendor selection and preparing for implementation.