Early Phase Requirements Assessment of a Teletreatment Trial

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.