Better with Architecture

The book 'Better with Architecture' is a publication of the 'Architecture in the healthcare domain' working group of the NAF (Dutch Architecture Forum). The working group aims to promote knowledge sharing in the field of information architecture in the healthcare sector. In the working group, ArchiXL is represented by principal consultant Erwin Oord. Erwin, as co-author, played an important role in the creation of the book.

The main purpose of this book is to convince administrators and professionals in the healthcare sector, health insurers and healthcare recipients ('patients') of the need for an integrated approach to the provision of information for the healthcare sector. To this end, the book explains the special aspects that make the healthcare sector a unique sector in understandable language. The book also explains the developments that are already taking place or are yet to come. Furthermore, the book explains what information architecture actually is and what contribution it can make to an integrated approach to controlling these developments.

The authors have chosen to approach the different target groups separately. There is a chapter aimed at policymakers and administrators of healthcare institutions. That chapter shows how architecture helps to get a better grip on the developments taking place in the sector. Another chapter shows healthcare providers how architecture can help to have all the captured information about a patient available at the right time in the right form. There is a chapter that shows the recipients of care that they too benefit from good architecture, because it makes care safer and more efficient, for example by reducing the risk of confidential patient data leaking out. The next chapter explains to health insurers that architecture thus contributes to better care and cost reduction.

The book ends with a practical manual that shows those involved how to get started in a goal-oriented way. The approach is that all architecture activities must produce results quickly. Small steps are therefore better than a large process in which everything has to be different.