Tuesday, March 17, 2009

Why health care is complex: data + process + information models...

The cover of David Benyon's (1990 & 1996) Information and Data Modelling book features the diagram below. The combination of data model and process models gives rise to a data processing model which can be termed an information model.

The processes giving context to data and thereby rendering it more meaningful hence 'information'.


Appreciating this computer science example, we can get a grasp of why health and social care is so complex.

Not all things are purely accumulative, but perhaps by extending this we can also see why creating, representing and implementing a model of care (social, nursing, ...) is so difficult.

Not only that, but we also need to consider the arrival of ICT in the care arena. This means mixing the information and care models to deliver a working 'bells and whistles' information system solution.

Since Hodges' model is composed from assumptions about nursing - health and social care - the model can also be used here through decomposition. The model's domains suggest at least four core models:

SCIENCES: the usual sense of data model in this sense physical data;
INTRAPERSONAL: a mental health - emotional care - or personal data model;
SOCIOLOGY: a social data model frequently characterised temporally as a social history;
POLITICAL: governance model, covering security, access, sharing, consent.

So it is a big order. To the informatics take on the book cover above we can add

+ physical 'care' data model
+
personal data model
+
social data model
+ governance data model


And just to think - all this needs to be done in a socio-technical harmony with the info-tech players paying heed to the four P's (PROCESS, POLICY, PURPOSE and PRACTICE) plus whatever modelling, project management, service improvement methods may be employed.

The biggest potentially confounding factor though
and the biggest 'P' of all is of course
PEOPLE
but no problem that is why we care.

Additional links:

David Benyon