Agile Software Development with Open Source Software in a Hospital Environment - Case Study of an eCRF-System for Orthopaedical Studies

In recent years, agile development of web-based applications as well as open-source software (OSS) have been subject to research and practical application in many domains. For the healthcare sector, the use of OSS has been studied in the literature with contradicting findings. Regarding OSS in clinical applications, mainly case studies from hospital-wide IS have been reported. Agile methods have been examined merely in the context of healthcare software product development. However, the development of web-based applications in clinical departments using agile methods and OSS has not been studied so far. Thus, in this paper the feasibility of such an approach is examined for an electronic case report form (eCRF) application for orthopaedical studies. It is demonstrated how OSS-based web engineering projects may be successfully accomplished in highly specialized environments like clinical departments by properly taking into account their specific requirements.

[1]  Alistair Cockburn,et al.  Selecting a Project 's Methodology , 2000, IEEE Softw..

[2]  Tore Dybå,et al.  Empirical studies of agile software development: A systematic review , 2008, Inf. Softw. Technol..

[3]  Amrapali Zaveri,et al.  Electronic Data Capture for Registries and Clinical Trials in Orthopaedic Surgery: Open Source versus Commercial Systems , 2010, Clinical orthopaedics and related research.

[4]  Sebastiaan H. von Solms,et al.  Selection of secure single sign-on solutions for heterogeneous computing environments , 1997, SEC.

[5]  Linda Rising,et al.  The Scrum Software Development Process for Small Teams , 2000, IEEE Softw..

[6]  Steven H. Brown,et al.  VistA - U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs national-scale HIS , 2003, Int. J. Medical Informatics.

[7]  Blackford Middleton,et al.  The value from investments in health information technology at the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. , 2010, Health affairs.

[8]  Kent L. Beck,et al.  Extreme programming explained - embrace change , 1990 .

[9]  Brian Fitzgerald,et al.  OPEN SOURCE SOFTWARE IN THE TRENCHES: LESSONS FROM A LARGE-SCALE OSS IMPLEMENTATION 1 , 2003 .

[10]  Izet Masic.  Medical Informatics in a United and Healthy Europe , 2009, MIE.

[11]  Dejan Dinevski,et al.  Open Source Software in Health Care and Open Three Example , 2007, Twentieth IEEE International Symposium on Computer-Based Medical Systems (CBMS'07).

[12]  J. D. Molin.  Open Innovation: Transforming Health Systems Through Open and Evidence Based Health ICT Innovation , 2011 .

[13]  Luis Fernandez Luque,et al.  The MyHealthService approach for chronic disease management based on free open source software and low cost components , 2009, 2009 Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society.

[14]  Nigel Collier,et al.  A framework for enhancing spatial and temporal granularity in report-based health surveillance systems , 2010, BMC Medical Informatics Decis. Mak..

[15]  S. Straus,et al.  Development and Example of a Web-Based Open Source Clinical Tool , 2007, Eighth World Congress on the Management of eBusiness (WCMeB 2007).

[16]  J. Wardlaw,et al.  An open source toolkit for medical imaging de-identification , 2010, European Radiology.

[17]  Michael Hogarth,et al.  A Study of Clinically Related Open Source Software Projects , 2005, AMIA.

[18]  Jan Pries-Heje,et al.  Why Scrum Works: A Case Study from an Agile Distributed Project in Denmark and India , 2011, 2011 AGILE Conference.

[19]  Julia Punitha Malar Dhas,et al.  An open source private cloud solution for rural healthcare , 2011, 2011 International Conference on Signal Processing, Communication, Computing and Networking Technologies.

[20]  Kevin Cleary,et al.  Agile methods for open source safety‐critical software , 2011, Softw. Pract. Exp..

[21]  Neil A. Ernst,et al.  Open Source, Open Standards, and Health Care Information Systems , 2011, Journal of medical Internet research.

[22]  Alistair Cockburn,et al.  Crystal Clear: A Human-Powered Methodology for Small Teams , 2004 .

[23]  Jan Pries-Heje,et al.  Agile & distributed project management: a case study revealing why scrum is useful , 2011, ECIS.

[24]  Szymon Wilk,et al.  Implementing an Integrative Multi-agent Clinical Decision Support System with Open Source Software , 2012, Journal of Medical Systems.

[25]  Bruce Ralston.  Open source expected to improve innovation. , 2009, Health management technology.

[26]  Graham Wright,et al.  Open Source and Healthcare in Europe - Time to Put Leading Edge Ideas into Practice , 2009, MIE.