Improving Medical Safety using Software Engineering Technology

本项目将探索软件工程技术在改善医疗保健方面的应用。医疗服务由医生、护士、医院工作人员等提供，通过执行旨在协调所有人的努力的程序，并有效利用昂贵的设备和医生的时间和注意力等稀缺资源。这些过程令人惊讶地庞大和复杂，它们被错误执行的情况并不少见。在美国，每年近10万人的死亡可归因于医疗差错，其中许多似乎是由于流程误解、流程任务执行中的错误或流程本身的缺陷。多年来，软件工程研究已经理解了过程的重要性，并展示了技术如何通过改进软件开发领域中的过程来改进结果。美国访问研究人员Osterweil和Clarke的初步研究表明，软件技术也可以在医疗实践领域带来这类改进。由Pi Rosenblum和合作者Kramer开发的其他设计技术应该会带来更多类型的改进。这个项目的目的就是探索这一前提。该项目将把来自英国和美国的研究人员聚集在一起，他们的互补优势将带来新的见解，这将导致新技术和更安全的医疗保健。Osterweil在流程定义方面的工作将支持对医疗流程以及执行这些流程所使用的资源的精确和严格的定义。克莱默关于观点和要求的工作将帮助研究人员更好地与医疗专业人员沟通，从而导致对要定义的过程的更清晰和更准确的理解。克拉克在软件分析方面的工作将使所需的安全特征正式化，并将应用分析器来识别过程中的(潜在致命的)缺陷。罗森布鲁姆的工作将提供模拟，研究人员将使用这些模拟来评估从过程改进中可能获得的效率。这项研究将导致明显优越的医疗过程，因此更安全。处理这一新领域的过程也有望揭示这四名研究人员现有技术的不足，从而也导致技术的改进。

This project will explore the application of software engineering technology to the improvement of medical care. Medical care is delivered by doctors, nurses, hospital staff, etc., by performing processes intended to coordinate the efforts of all, and to make efficient use of scarce resources such as expensive equipment and doctors' time and attention. These processes are surprisingly large and complex, and it is not unusual for them to be performed incorrectly. In the US nearly 100,000 deaths a year are attributable to medical errors, and many of them appear to be due to process misunderstandings, errors in performance of process tasks, or defects in the processes themselves. Software engineering research has, for many years, understood the importance of process, and has demonstrated how technologies can improve outcomes by improving processes in the domain of software development. Preliminary research by visiting researchers Osterweil and Clarke in the US has demonstrated that software technologies can bring improvements of these kinds in the domain of medical practice as well. Additional design technologies developed by PI Rosenblum and collaborator Kramer should bring additional types of improvements. The purpose of this project is to explore that premise.The project will bring together researchers from the UK and the USA whose complementary strengths will bring new insights, that should lead to new technologies, and safer medical care. Osterweil's work on process definition will support the precise and rigorous definition of medical processes, and of the resources used in performing them. Kramer's work on viewpoints and requirements will help the researchers communicate with medical professionals better, thereby resulting in clearer and more precise understandings of the processes to be defined. Clarke's work on software analysis will formalise the safety characteristics that are required, and will apply analysers to identify (potentially lethal) defects in the processes. Rosenblum's work will provide simulations that the researchers will use to evaluate possible efficiencies obtained from process improvements.The research will result in medical processes that are demonstrably superior, and thus safer. Grappling with processes in this new domain is also expected to reveal inadequacies on the four researchers' existing technologies, thereby also leading to improvements in the technologies as well.