Query-based requirements engineering for health care information systems: Examples and prospects

Designing healthcare information systems is a challenge to software engineering theory and practice. Many requirements engineering (RE) methods demand user-participation, clear functional objectives and a well defined context of use. These demands are hard to meet in the healthcare domain, which is characterized by high diversity, complexity and little time and money to spend. There are many examples of healthcare software systems that have failed due to lacking investment in the early phases of design and requirements analysis. We have developed methods for gathering detailed observational data about care and communication practice. In this article, we explain how this data can be used for iterative, demand-driven, requirements elicitation and to answer design questions. The examples are taken from structured observation of actors, situations, information usage and activities at two Norwegian hospitals. We regard this approach as a useful supplement to other RE methods, in particular for agile development methods.