Page - 16 - in Applied Interdisciplinary Theory in Health Informatics - Knowledge Base for Practitioners

Boulding’s levels should not be mistaken for an attempt to provide a definitive taxonomy of GST or of life. It does however provide, and is best used as, a simple framework for discussing system models of increasing complexity. GST also provides a starting point for the rich world of systems thinking and systems approaches that can help health informatics practitioner understanding and improve the use of health informatics in modern organizations. Such approaches include systems engineering, Peter Checkland’s Soft Systems Method [1], complexity science, systems dynamics, simulation and Peter Senge’s Learning Organizations [7]. 2. Using GST in Health Informatics 2.1. How health informatics professionals can use GST Health informatics professionals can: 1) Use GST in its narrowest sense to identify, model and define a system of interest following the definition of GST in Section 1.2. A careful choice of boundary is essential as the components and relationships within the system should be directly responsible for the system appearing as a coherent whole. GST forces deep reflection on what the system actually is, how it survives over time, its structure and environment. A good understanding of how and why a surgical team works well should be an essential pre- requisite to an implementation project introducing a new informatics solution that is expected to help their performance. Conversely, of course, it can help understand why health informatics projects often fail. We would encourage the former. 2) Use the language of GST for interdisciplinary communication. We have italicized most of the key GST terms in this chapter and the informatics practitioner who is familiar with and can use these terms in discussion with healthcare professionals (and even managers) should find that they are speaking a common language if only because most will have learnt them in biology classes. 3) Develop their understanding of GST into a broader systems approach to problem solving. There are many good books, courses and online material that are linked to and build on GST and systems approaches. Once you have started thinking in systems, it is difficult to stop and there are many practitioners who consider systems thinking has transformed their professional approach. The following examples of the applications of GST within health informatics will, we hope, illustrate the scope and potential. 2.2. Applications of GST in Healthcare Computing Our modern computer systems were first developed within the climate of the post-war systems movement and computer science has contributed to, and benefited from, GST. In common with other systems, computer systems have components (software and hardware) and relationships (interfaces, dependencies and networks) and we can describe these in terms of inputs, processes, outputs, feedback and control. Component based and layered architectures are designed to manage complexity while delivering functionality and performance at scale. Most people know from experience that some computer systems are better than others and that some can crash or slow down unexpectedly. Computer system performance (and usability, security and other non-functional O.Johnson /GeneralSystemTheoryand theUseofProcessMining to ImproveCarePathways16