Defining and measuring clinical processes using a dynamical systems approach.

We describe an approach to defining and measuring a clinical process and its components. The approach was developed subsequent to an attempt to measure the value of an Electronic Patient Medical Record System (EPMRS). To build our model, we assume the medical record is a communications channel and extend Shannon's model to include the clinicians' concepts, tasks, and tactics. We assumed the patient care process is a series of actions and explore the appropriate dimensions for describing patient care events. The extended model of communication and patient care events enumerates the dimensions for gathering data to measure physicians' use of patient medical information systems while caring for patients. The clinical process model may be constructed using dynamical systems theory, also known as chaos theory. Traditional statistical modeling is compared to dynamical system modeling to suggest which method may result in a better model of the patient care process.