Abstract (English)
Hospitals are facing the challenge to operate in a more process-orientated manner in order to improve efficiency and transparency as well as to reduce costs. This also includes the area of Facility Management[FM]. This situation presents a great opportunity to look at the interfaces between the medical core business and the non-medical support services, and to establish FM as a holistic process supporter instead of a sole provider of single services. In order to handle the numerous interactions between the different professions and requirements within the complex hospital context, specific process visualization and simulation tools and methods will have to be developed. To achieve a characterization of different processes, a model for FM in Healthcare[HC] processes in the entire hospital process context is presented. Following the Design Science Research[DSR] principles, an iterative approach combining explorative elements with empirical qualitative expert-interviews was applied. The findings show that FM in HC needs to intensify the characterization of processes, the systematic collection of(process) data, the openness towards IT and the interdisciplinary dialogue between the medical, non-medical and strategic processes in hospitals in order to accommodate the increasing need for process orientation in hospitals.