Table 2.

Guidelines for creating process maps

Guideline	Operationalization
1. Represent temporal nature of process.	• Rows represent phases of care transition: transition preparation, transition and transition follow-up. • Time is represented moving down through the phases and roughly from left to right.
2. Represent spatial nature of process (i.e., physical locations where work is performed).	• Columns represent physical locations: OR, PICU or ICU and the path of transport from OR to PICU or ICU.
3. Clearly indicate distributed work.	• Tasks that are distributed spatially in the OR and PICU or ICU are represented with dashed lines connecting the boxes in each column.
4. Highlight work completed in preparation for, but not necessarily part of, the process being modeled.	• Activities when the patient is still in the ED before transfer to the OR are in light grey.
5. Distinguish and incorporate higher-level goals and specific tasks performed by individual(s).	• Each bulleted line in the activity box represents tasks completed by a unique group of roles.
6. Show tools and technologies used for each task.	• The technologies used only in one bulleted line (task or tasks completed by the same group of roles) are represented with icons. • If a technology was used for every bulleted line in an activity box, the icon is to the right of the title of that box.
Represent variation in the process.	• There were differences in two and five bullet points between level 1 and level 2 patients for pediatric and adult care transitions, respectively; specific differences are highlighted by text color.