Functional Aspects of My Health Record

Discuss about the System Design for Telemedicine Health Care System.

My Health Record is an online secure platform that will provide the summary of the health information of an individual. The platform is being launched by Commonwealth Government of Australia. It is a platform that is essential to provide the patients with improved quality of care and streamlined services. The platform will bring the medical fraternity and the patients on one platform with ease of accessibility. The report covers the non-functional requirements of the system, review of cloud-based solutions, and SDLC approach.

My Health Record must be designed in such a manner that it meets the functional aspects and provides the users with the ease of usage. The system shall be easy to navigate and must have a simple layout so that the patients as well as the medical professionals may execute the desired functionality with ease. There shall also be consistency in terms of layout, color scheme, text size, and likewise across all the screens to provide an enhanced user experience. The error resolution mechanism must also be integrated in the application (Lauesen & Younessi, 2016).

Health information is extremely critical and sensitive in nature. A system such as My Health Record cannot afford to provide the users with non-updated information. Therefore, the system shall ensure that it responds to every user request with updated information to maintain the reliability of the system (Chung, 2016).

The patients, doctors, and other users that will access the system would wish to receive the response in quick turnaround time. The developers must ensure that the response time, throughput time, and turnaround time for every system function is minimal. There may also be multiple users that would access the system at the same time. Such occurrences shall not have any impact on the system performance and load balancing features must be set up accordingly (Malan & Bredemeyer, 2010).

Technological changes may come up for My Health Record after its deployment. Therefore, the system must be supportable and scalable to meet the technological and other changes. The users may also wish to access the system on varied platforms, such as smartphones, tablets, laptops, or desktop computers. The operating systems may also vary for the users. The system shall be platform-independent to support the varied access measures (Shaikh & Misbahuddin, 2016).

Cloud-based platforms will be necessary to deploy and deliver the systems to provide accessibility to all the users. There are primarily three types of cloud delivery models that are available as SaaS, PaaS, and IaaS on the basis of software, platform, and infrastructure respectively. After reviewing the properties and requirements of My Health Record, the platform that will be applicable is Platform as a Service (PaaS) (Pahl, 2015).

Designing My Health Record

The deployment of the system for the end-users will be an essential requirement and the same will be carried out using cloud deployment model. There are three categories of cloud deployment models viz. public, private, and hybrid. Each of these models has its own set of pros and cons.

In case of My Health Record, the system will comprise of critical information and it would be essential to maintain the privacy of all the information and data sets. Health information is required to be complied with defined standards and protocols. Thus, information security and privacy will be the top priority for this system. After reviewing the requirements of the system, the cloud deployment model that shall be utilized is hybrid cloud model. It is the cloud model that is an amalgamation of public and private cloud models comprising of properties from each of the two models (Jenkins, 2014).

Predictive Software Development Lifecycle (SDLC) is a set of processes that shall be followed for development of system and these processes are defined in advance. The execution of the processes under any of the predictive SDLC approach is linear or sequential with a fixed order that shall not be altered during the system timeline. There are several pros of this approach as listed below.  

• Impact analysis is easier to be carried out on the basis of the activities executed in the prior stages.
• Advanced planning is involved and the sequence of steps is known in advance.
• Better standardization

One of the most commonly used and applied predictive SDLC approach is Waterfall model. It is the model that comprises of the phases as planning, requirements analysis, design & development, testing, deployment, maintenance, and go-live executed in the same order (Okoli & Carillo, 2012). Most of the requirements and properties of My Health Record are illustrated in advance. The use of Waterfall model for this system will provide the resources with the benefits of clarity in approach and knowledge of the steps to be executed. There may be a few changes that may come up in terms of the requirements or technology. The predictive SDLC approach has a few cons that are as listed below. 

• Change execution and management will be troublesome.
• System flexibility will be compromised as the sequence of steps cannot be changes.
• Risk management is an issue as the re-work and changes resulting from the occurrence of a risk will be difficult to handle.

Another approach that may be followed for the development of the systems is adaptive software development lifecycle. It is a value-based approach that does not come with a defined set of steps or phases. The approach is ad-hoc and the phases and their activities are determined on the basis of the project requirements. The methodology that is applied may therefore alter for varied projects.

The most common adaptive SDLC methodology that is currently being used in the business organizations for system development is agile methodology. As the name suggests, it is an adaptive methodology that offers enhanced system flexibility. The development work is executed in sprints (iterations) and each sprint fulfils a sub-set of the overall requirements set. The final set of objectives is achieved with the execution of these sprints unless the end-goal is met (Townsend, Mennecke, Ashmore & DeMarie, 2018).

Reliability of My Health Record

My Health Record is a secure online platform that is provided with a business case along with a set of requirements. In case of adaptive SDLC, such as agile, there are short-term goals that are made up. It gets easier to plan and achieve these goals instead of a single long-term objective. The methodology provides the following set of benefits to the projects.

• Change management is easy and the ability to execute the changes is provided to the project resources.
• Enhanced customer involvement in all the stages of the project.
• Better scalability and flexibility of the system with enhanced risk management.

Customers are asked for feedback at regular intervals so that they are kept involved and the changes are highlighted in a timely manner. There are certain pros that are associated with the adaptive methodology as listed below.

• The resources may face lack of clarity as there is no pre-defined flow or guidelines.
• There is a lack of standardization that is involved.
• System implementation may be an issue.

Recommendations & Conclusions

The pros and cons of predictive SDLC and adaptive SDLC are made in the section above. Both of the approaches have their own benefits and drawbacks in association with My Health Record. After analysing the features of both of these approaches and mapping the same with requirements of My Health Record, it is recommended that adaptive SDLC shall be utilized for the system. The decision is taken on the basis of the pros of the adaptive SDLC. System changes and risks are certain to occur during the project timeline and the probability further enhances in a system as My Health Record wherein there are multiple technologies involved. The implementation of adaptive SDLC, such as agile framework will handle such changes and will allow the system to be scaled up or down. The end-users, such as patients and medical professionals will also be asked for their feedback so that the final product is usable, reliable, and offers rich user experience. 

My Health Record is a system that is being designed with an aim to improve the quality, accuracy, and accessibility of the health services. It shall, therefore, focus upon the system quality by comprising the non-functional requirements as usability, scalability, performance, and supportability in perspective. The cloud-based solutions that shall be involved in the system shall include PaaS cloud model for system delivery and hybrid cloud model for system deployment.

References

Chung, L. (2016). Non-Functional Requirements. Retrieved 26 July 2018, from https://www.utdallas.edu/~chung/SYSM6309/NFR-18-4-on-1.pdf

Jenkins, R. (2014). Hybrid Public Private Cloud Computing for the Media Industry. SMPTE Motion Imaging Journal, 123(3), 56-59. doi: 10.5594/j18398xy

Lauesen, S. & Younessi, H. (2016). Six Styles for Usability Requirements. Retrieved 26 July 2018, from https://www.itu.dk/~slauesen/Papers/SixStyles.pdf

Malan, R. & Bredemeyer, D. (2010). Defining Non-Functional Requirements. Retrieved 26 July 2018, from https://www.bredemeyer.com/pdf_files/NonFunctReq.PDF

Okoli, C., & Carillo, K. (2012). The best of adaptive and predictive methodologies: open source software development, a balance between agility and discipline. International Journal Of Information Technology And Management, 11(1/2), 153. doi: 10.1504/ijitm.2012.044071

Pahl, C. (2015). Containerization and the PaaS Cloud. IEEE Cloud Computing, 2(3), 24-31. doi: 10.1109/mcc.2015.51

Shaikh, A. & Misbahuddin, M. (2016). A system design for a telemedicine health care system. Retrieved 26 July 2018, from https://gupea.ub.gu.se/bitstream/2077/10498/1/gupea_2077_10498_1.pdf

Singh, J., & Kaur, H. (2013). Study of Cloud Computing and Survey of PaaS and SaaS Providers. International Journal Of Applied Research On Information Technology And Computing, 4(2), 75. doi: 10.5958/j.0975-8089.4.2.007

Townsend, A., Mennecke, B., Ashmore, S., & DeMarie, S. (2018). An exploratory examination of modes of interaction and work in waterfall and agile teams. International Journal Of Agile Systems And Management, 11(1), 67. doi: 10.1504/ijasm.2018.10012516

Walraven, S., Truyen, E., & Joosen, W. (2013). Comparing PaaS offerings in light of SaaS development. Computing, 96(8), 669-724. doi: 10.1007/s00607-013-0346-9