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BMC Medical Informatics and Decision Making
Published in: BMC Medical Informatics and Decision Making 1/2012

Open Access 01-12-2012 | Correspondence

Requirements for guidelines systems: implementation challenges and lessons from existing software-engineering efforts

Authors: Hemant Shah, Raymond D Allard, Robert Enberg, Ganesh Krishnan, Patricia Williams, Prakash M Nadkarni

Published in: BMC Medical Informatics and Decision Making | Issue 1/2012

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Abstract

Background

A large body of work in the clinical guidelines field has identified requirements for guideline systems, but there are formidable challenges in translating such requirements into production-quality systems that can be used in routine patient care. Detailed analysis of requirements from an implementation perspective can be useful in helping define sub-requirements to the point where they are implementable. Further, additional requirements emerge as a result of such analysis. During such an analysis, study of examples of existing, software-engineering efforts in non-biomedical fields can provide useful signposts to the implementer of a clinical guideline system.

Methods

In addition to requirements described by guideline-system authors, comparative reviews of such systems, and publications discussing information needs for guideline systems and clinical decision support systems in general, we have incorporated additional requirements related to production-system robustness and functionality from publications in the business workflow domain, in addition to drawing on our own experience in the development of the Proteus guideline system (http://​proteme.​org).

Results

The sub-requirements are discussed by conveniently grouping them into the categories used by the review of Isern and Moreno 2008. We cite previous work under each category and then provide sub-requirements under each category, and provide example of similar work in software-engineering efforts that have addressed a similar problem in a non-biomedical context.

Conclusions

When analyzing requirements from the implementation viewpoint, knowledge of successes and failures in related software-engineering efforts can guide implementers in the choice of effective design and development strategies.
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Metadata
Title
Requirements for guidelines systems: implementation challenges and lessons from existing software-engineering efforts
Authors
Hemant Shah
Raymond D Allard
Robert Enberg
Ganesh Krishnan
Patricia Williams
Prakash M Nadkarni
Publication date
01-12-2012
Publisher
BioMed Central
Published in
BMC Medical Informatics and Decision Making / Issue 1/2012
Electronic ISSN: 1472-6947
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1186/1472-6947-12-16

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