Requirements Engineering for Emerging Healthcare Software Systems

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

In 2016, Canada spent $228 billion on healthcare, with 70% of that amount coming from governments. Healthcare administrators are increasing their Information Technology (IT) budgets to cope with new regulations, new funding models, evolving technologies, and aging populations, resulting in high demands for new or improved healthcare software systems. Yet, many IT projects fail, in healthcare and elsewhere, often leading to much budget waste and many dissatisfied stakeholders. Poorly-defined and changing requirements are often a major cause of failures and additional expenses/delays. Meanwhile, healthcare providers are also considering new technology opportunities offered by Big Data, artificial intelligence, decision/predictive analytics, mobile applications, cloud storage/computing, blockchains, 5G, and the Internet of Things (IoT). In this context, there is an urgent need to improve our Requirements Engineering (RE) practices, notations, and tools and adapt them to the specificities of healthcare, to promote their adoption among healthcare organizations, and to contribute RE knowledge that will improve the likelihood of success during the development and integration of healthcare software systems.******This research program aims to understand current RE practices in Canadian healthcare and determine opportunities for improvement, with a focus on requirements modelling activities. It also aims to customize and promote novel modelling practices, notations, and tools to improve RE efficiency and effectiveness in healthcare, and to evaluate them in real settings. These goals will be met through the development, customization, and evaluation of techniques such as data-driven requirements modeling for IoT healthcare systems and with IoT (as a source of information enabling adaptation), requirements mining on the cloud and social media, clinical process integration for multi-morbidity patients, and health system integration in community hospitals. Existing expertise with the User Requirements Notation standard and related tools for goal/process modelling and analysis will be used as a start point for some projects. Collaboration with practitioners from 6 hospitals and clinics located in Ontario and Québec and with industrial partners will bring key contributors to a successful program. ******This research will enable the introduction of novel RE practices in healthcare and indirectly the likelihood of success of upcoming healthcare software system projects, of major budget savings (millions of dollars for governments and industry), and of increased satisfaction of stakeholders (including patients, practitioners, software developers, managers, and taxpayers). This program will have a positive impact on the quality of life and health of Canadians, while training many students in an exciting and multi-disciplinary area with skills that are in very high demand.