Early phase requirements assessment of a teletreatment trial

ABSTRACT

This paper presents the early phase requirements elicitation of a teletreatment trial and the assessment of the requirements in respect of their importance to the trial and the feasibility of the corresponding adaptations of the telemedicine system within the trial project constraints. The elicitation approach and techniques adopt the particulars of the telemedicine working practices. The proposed approach not only uses the treatment description and scenario, it also utilizes the trial design. A trial design defines the settings of a trial and develops the treatment protocols such that treatment efficacy can be evaluated based on evidence. Such a design has to be a priori approved by a medical ethical committee, which may impose additional constraints that influence the elicited requirements. The approach therefore involves stakeholders who are not necessarily the users of the system to be. In line with the telemedicine working practices, the approach is moreover based on the identification and analysis of the tasks and task objectives associated to the responsibilities of the involved stakeholders. Furthermore, the elicitation is cyclic and applies a collection of known techniques and informal specification styles (e.g. tables and mock-ups). Results of the cycles converge to a set of requirements understood and agreed upon by the trial designers, who are medical professionals, typically unaware of the methods and techniques applied by engineers, but who co-shape the telemedicine system to be. This way of working manages expectations better, necessary in a telemedicine collaboration.

REFERENCES

• 1: Chow, S-C., and Liu, J-P. 2004. Design and Analysis of Clinical Trials: Concepts and Methodologies, Wiley-Intersc.
• 2: Conway, B. J. NWP SAF: 1st User-Requirements Survey. EUMETSAT. http://www.metoffice.gov.uk, visited 8-1-'08.
• 3: Luiz Marcio Cysneiros, Requirements Engineering in the Health Care Domain, Proceedings of the 10th Anniversary IEEE Joint International Conference on Requirements Engineering, p.350-356, September 09-13, 2002
• 4: Emmanuel Letier , Axel van Lamsweerde, Reasoning about partial goal satisfaction for requirements and design engineering, Proceedings of the 12th ACM SIGSOFT twelfth international symposium on Foundations of software engineering, October 31-November 06, 2004, Newport Beach, CA, USA

INDEX TERMS

Primary Classification:
  D. Software
  D.2 SOFTWARE ENGINEERING
      D.2.1 Requirements/Specifications
          Subjects: Elicitation methods (e.g., rapid prototyping, interviews, JAD)

Additional Classification:
  D. Software
  D.2 SOFTWARE ENGINEERING
      D.2.1 Requirements/Specifications
          Subjects: Methodologies (e.g., object-oriented, structured)

General Terms:
Design

Keywords:
goal-oriented requirements elicitation, telemedicine, trial design