Requirements

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Introduction

The requirements analysis determines and documents the functional needs of the information systems project. This analysis develops a clear understanding of what stakeholders of the application need.

The requirements will be stated in the context of the organization's mission, strategic plan, goals, objectives, and information needs, including external requirements and commitments to partners and consumers of information.

Basic Elements of the Requirements Analysis

The basic elements of the Requirements Analysis are:

Information exchange with internal and external providers and consumers, e.g., electronic data interchange (EDI);

Required reporting and analysis of data;

Available sources of information;

Information format, media, quantity, integrity, and timeliness;

Data standards, data element definitions, classification, and coding;

Essential records and information for current and future program and mission; and

Records retention, disposition, and archival storage and retrieval.

Major elements of Requirements Analysis:

Information Needs

Functional Requirements

System Workload

Space and Environmental Considerations

System Life

Conversion

General Requirements

Quick and Easy to implement

Inexpensive to implement

Minimizes Conversion Costs

Easy to train stakeholders how to use system

Standards are easily enforced

Flexible and customizable for the users benefit

Provided for Security, Privacy, and Confidentiality of Client's data by permitting access only to those elements of the information that individuals users have authorization

Standardized for easy comparison among different entices and across different systems

Provide rapid access to the specific elements of information in the database required by each user

Provide information in a timely and consistent manner

Eliminate or minimize the duplication of information

Results must be in a form that can be used by all stakeholders

Encourages individuals to take an active part in management processes

Enhances management's ability to make decisions.

Serve as an Educational tool

Inexpensive to maintain

Modular in design in order to accommodate expansion to adapt to the needs of a growing organization.

Quick and Easy to Implement

Using off the shelve programs that many people know and are familiar with allows for easy implementation and training.

Inexpensive to Implement

Using off the shelve programs that many people know and are familiar with allows for less costly solutions.

Flexibility and expected System Life

Even thou Standards are rigidly followed, flexibility must be built into the human interfaces to allow for differences of practice, user requirements, and future modifications.

Easy to Locate Data

Data in paper records are not always readily available at the point of clinical care, particularly in large institutions and it is even more difficult to collect all the data from one client into one collection to be able to analysis (if one is capable of "seeing" all the relationships). A good information system has the potential to overcome this problem.

Comprehensive

The health care information system must reference all information thought to be clinically relevant to the care of the client. In today's environment, almost anything is relevant to health care. The ability to view information at various levels of detail will mean that the presentation can be structured to the particular user of that information without overwhelming the user with details. It is not necessary in many cases to view "normal" data. Management by "Exception" will allow managers be use their time more effectively.

Auditing and Security of the record

Every entry in the system must be attributed to an author and to a time that it was entered. What is displayed in the record should be tractable to related events. These records should only be accessible by identifiable users who have the required permission. Each and every access should be recorded. (See Security)

Data Links

The user must be able to define links between any set of elements by using simple query tools. Links should be available between any and all other information, which may include but is not limited to, protocols, economic conditions, and statistical results.

Conversion
Any requirements to transition from an existing system, convert data from different formats or media, run old and new system in parallel for a period, etc.

Business Process

What new or enhanced processes or capabilities need to be supported;
Existing deficiencies that need to be overcome;
What program goals, objectives, and commitments (internal and external) need to be met;
Improvements in efficiencies and effectiveness. Data entry will be improved by having the user simply "select" a response instead of having to enter the text data directly into the system. By using prepared lists for the user to "choose" his or her chose, instead of direct text entry, data can be entered quickly and accurately.
Reductions in redundancies by eliminating the need to summary data and to keep multiple lists of information. The InHCc system will normalize all data structures
Benefits

The benefits that the new application is to achieve.

How will we measure those benefits?

Task orientated work. The ability to automatically generate commonly required documents should speed up tasks of administration.

Integration

How do we integrate the application with other existing or planned systems or processes?

Standards. Although information systems should rigidly support standards, the system should support initiative and creative ideas. There must be the ability to make changes and to improve the system (See Standards). The user must always be free to record a piece of information in free text if standardized terms appear unsuitable. This free-text might be a singe word or a long narrative. These Memo fields can later be text searched.

Technical Requirements

Coding Versions

Because this system is expected to grow over time, a mechanism for coding changes must be implemented in such a way that future versions of such dictionaries carry no risk of incorrectly decoding those records made using earlier versions (see Version Control Problem).

Space and Environmental Considerations

Determine facilities requirements for space, electrical power, uninterruptible power supply, back-up power (e.g., diesel generators), air conditioning, heating, physical protection and security of equipment, cabling/wiring, and wire closets.

System Workload

Projections for necessary system capacity in areas including: data storage, user base, processor utilization, and communications over the system life;

Expandability and extensibility; and

Considerations regarding peak utilization requirements and contingency plans for component failures in mission-critical systems.

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