A design thinking framework and design patterns for hospital pharmacy management

Nowadays, several hospitals are still suffering from inefficient processes. Redesigning business processes is an effective way for improvement. However, business process mapping and analysis in healthcare environment has become a complex task. Besides, most healthcare professionals often resist change. To deal with these obstacles, a design thinking framework and design patterns useful for modelling and simulation are proposed in this article. Initially, current problems focusing on hospital pharmacy management are identified through empirical investigation. According to the problems, the suitable solutions are determined based on the related literature. Afterwards, the holistic view of problems and their solutions with different aspects can be structured as the design thinking framework. For each solution, the design patterns are represented through various attributes including pattern name, purpose, description, modelling structure using a business process modelling notation. Likewise, the attributes facilitated to simulation modelling are also combined such as control variables and performance measures. Here, based on the crucial problem that mostly concerned in any hospital case studies, the design pattern related to the problem of inefficient inventory management policy is illustrated and verified. Through a design thinking framework and design patterns, business users or process modellers can rapidly understand the context of problems and conduct a successful simulation study. It can be a valuable tool to redesign healthcare systems.