Center for Cognitive Informatics and Decision Making, School of Biomedical Informatics, University of Texas Health Science Center, Houston, TX 77054, USA.
J Biomed Inform. 2011 Dec;44(6):943-7. doi: 10.1016/j.jbi.2011.06.006. Epub 2011 Jul 7.
A recent trend in the literature has been to characterize healthcare activities in terms of complex systems theory. Complexity has often been loosely and variously defined, with meanings ranging from "not simple" to "complicated" to "intractable." In this paper, we consider various aspects of complexity and how they relate to modern healthcare practice, with the aim of developing research approaches for studying complex healthcare environments. We propose a theoretical lens for understanding and studying complexity in healthcare systems based on degrees of interrelatedness of system components. We also describe, with relevant caveats, how complex healthcare systems are generally decomposable, rendering them more tractable for further study. The ideas of interrelatedness among the components of a system as a measure of complexity and functional decomposition as a mechanism for studying meaningful subcomponents of a complex system can be used as a framework for understanding complex healthcare systems. Using examples drawn from current literature and our own research, we explain the feasibility of this approach for understanding, studying, and managing complex healthcare systems.
最近的文献趋势是根据复杂系统理论来描述医疗保健活动。复杂性通常被松散地、不同地定义，其含义从“不简单”到“复杂”再到“棘手”不等。在本文中，我们考虑了复杂性的各个方面以及它们与现代医疗保健实践的关系，旨在为研究复杂的医疗保健环境开发研究方法。我们提出了一个基于系统组件相互关系程度的理论视角，用于理解和研究医疗保健系统中的复杂性。我们还描述了（有相关注意事项），一般来说，复杂的医疗保健系统是可分解的，这使得它们更易于进一步研究。将系统组件之间的相关性作为衡量复杂性的一种手段，以及将功能分解作为研究复杂系统有意义的子组件的一种机制，可以作为理解复杂医疗保健系统的一种框架。我们使用来自当前文献和我们自己的研究的例子，解释了这种方法用于理解、研究和管理复杂医疗保健系统的可行性。
