Abstract
Healthcare is indeed a complex service system, one requiring the technobiology approach of systems engineering to underpin its development as an integrated and adaptive system. In general, healthcare services are carried out with knowledge-intensive agents or components which work together as providers and consumers to create or co-produce value. Indeed, the engineering design of a healthcare system must recognize the fact that it is actually a complex integration of human-centered activities that is increasingly dependent on information technology and knowledge. Like any service system, healthcare can be considered to be a combination or recombination of three essential components — people (characterized by behaviors, values, knowledge, etc.), processes (characterized by collaboration, customization, etc.) and products (characterized by software, hardware, infrastructures, etc.). Thus, a healthcare system is an integrated and adaptive set of people, processes and products. It is, in essence, a system of systems which objectives are to enhance its efficiency (leading to greater interdependency) and effectiveness (leading to improved health). Integration occurs over the physical, temporal, organizational and functional dimensions, while adaptation occurs over the monitoring, feedback, cybernetic and learning dimensions. In sum, such service systems as healthcare are indeed complex, especially due to the uncertainties associated with the human-centered aspects of these systems. Moreover, the system complexities can only be dealt with methods that enhance system integration and adaptation.
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Pascal J. Goldschmidt-Clermont received his medical degree from the Universite Libre de Bruxelles and completed residency and fellowship training in Brussels at Erasme Academic Hospital and in the United States at The Johns Hopkins University. Following his training at Hopkins, he served as an associate professor in the university’s Department of Cell Biology and Anatomy, Department of Pathology, until 1997. He became director of cardiology at The Ohio State University College of Medicine and Public Health, where he established the Heart and Lung Research Institute and a heart hospital. He joined the Duke University Medical Center faculty in 2000 and served as chief of Duke’s Division of Cardiology before becoming chairman of the Department of Medicine. Dr. Goldschmidt-Clermont’s research interests concern the application of genomics and cell therapy to the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of coronary artery disease. He became senior vice president for medical affairs and dean of the University of Miami Leonard M. Miller School of Medicine in 2006, where he has established the International Medicine Institute, The Miami Institute for Human Genomics, and the Interdisciplinary Stem Cell Institute. He also serves as CEO of the University of Miami Health System (UHealth). In 2008, Dr. Goldschmidt received the inaugural Jay and Jeanie Schottenstein Prize in Cardiovascular Sciences from the Ohio State University Heart and Vascular Center.
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Tien, J.M., Goldschmidt-Clermont, P.J. Healthcare: A complex service system. J. Syst. Sci. Syst. Eng. 18, 257–282 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11518-009-5108-z
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11518-009-5108-z