A poke from your process modelling friends: join the new community group

A process modelling community group has been launched on the NHS Resource Centre site to help IT and information workers tasked with capturing healthcare processes and modelling the impact of strategic change.

Microsoft, the NHS Institute for Innovation and Improvement and TC Analyzer have all been involved in developing the new resource. But it is users that will develop the site by joining special interest groups and adding to its library of process models in use across the NHS.


Matt Oxley has high ambitions for the process modelling community group that he helped to develop for the NHS Resource Centre. “We want to create the Facebook of process,” he enthuses.

“We want to bring people together and get them sharing ideas. We want them to think process is exciting. Well, perhaps exciting is a challenge too far. But we want them to think process is something that you can do well and that you can gain respect for.

“That is why we have devised this community group. It will allow users to get advice and ultimately upload and share their process maps.”

New tools, new support

Mr Oxley is director of TC Analyzer, which developed the Analyzer Lite software tool to help NHS organisations model their business processes and options for strategic change. “We have reached the point where we really need modern, standardised process modelling techniques; and the community group is about the methods that are available and in use around the NHS."

He has worked on the new community group with the NHS Institute for Innovation and Improvement, which has funded a bespoke software simulation tool, Scenario Generator, for the NHS. This is particularly aimed at modelling care pathways and changes to meet the 18 week waiting time target.

This new area of the NHS Resource Centre has special interest groups that users of both tools can join. But, as Mr Oxley’s comments make clear, it has been built for a much wider community of IT and information workers with a practical interest in process.

Sticky notes and brown paper

“The way that the NHS looks at its processes tends to be very informal,” says Dr Nick Gaunt from the NHS Institute. “We have been promoting process mapping, which uses sticky notes and brown paper pinned to the walls and so on.

“That works very well in busy environments, because lots of people can pitch in, instead of having to sit down at a computer screen. But the outputs are not necessarily captured formally, in a way that can be shared.

“We have reached the point where we really need modern, standardised process modelling techniques; and the community group is about the methods that are available and in use around the NHS. We hope it will promote interest in them, help people to work with them, and share what they are doing with others.”

Best practice notation and methodology

The group outlines what process modelling is, how it can help organisations to discover, design, document and distribute details of the processes they use, and how it can help them to plan for changes such as the introduction of a new IT system or commissioning regime. "This is about showing people what can be done, but also about showing them the benefits, to demonstrate that it will be worthwhile.”

It outlines some common notations and methods for capturing processes that are already widely used in industry and some of the software packages and Microsoft applications that can be used in process modelling work.

The Process Modelling Community group also includes the foundations of a process model library that will hold examples of models created by people within the NHS that should expand over time.

Process modellers start here

“The initial audience is likely to be people tasked with drawing up process models and working with them, perhaps because a strategic change is being planned at a higher level within the organisation,” says Dr Gaunt.

“They might have questions like: ‘I have been asked to model a maternity service, how do I do that?’ Or ‘I am thinking of using this tool, what are other people’s experiences?’”

However, he also hopes that, over time, the portal will demonstrate the benefits of process modelling and kindle wider interest in it. “There is a capacity challenge,” he says. “People are very busy, so it is one thing to get them talking about process and another to get them actually doing it.

“This is about showing people what can be done, but also about showing them the benefits, to demonstrate that it will be worthwhile.”

Over to you

Mr Oxley stresses that the new group has been created as a community, so it is for users to decide exactly what direction it will take. “This is an exciting opportunity,” he says.

“We have had a lot of interest in the idea. But it is really for users to work with it and contribute ideas and discussions. This has to live and breathe for itself; that is the only way it will be successful.

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