Work process-oriented implementation of medical guidelines

The development of medical guidelines aims at the increase of quality and the reduction of costs of medical services. Though guidelines are widely diffused, they still have hardly considerable influence on patient treatment particularly within the ambulatory sector. Considering this, we interviewed practicing physicians about their problems wit the implementation of medical guidelines in primary care. These interviews and our study of related work revealed that the actual needs of practicing physicians have largely been neglected during the development process of medical guidelines. In an attempt to implement medical guidelines into primary care we analyzed the concrete requirements of physicians in order to meet their information demands. Based on these requirements we developed an approach of a work process-oriented implementation of medical guidelines. We also implemented a web-based prototypical application in order to put the concept into practice.