Book III: Scientific and Research Applications in Medical Care: Benefits of Using a Computerized Documentation Aide in Specifying and Documenting DoD Automated Health Care Systems

摘要

Effective systems development requires careful analysis of functional requirements before design activities begin. In addition, system documentation can easily become so massive that it is nearly impossible to maintain. Hospital information systems are, because of funding realities, often implemented in building-block fashion, which carries with it the risk that individual automated ancillary systems will not be able to communicate with one another to form a comprehensive management information system. The use of an automated documentation tool during the systems analysis phase provides the capability to specify individual ancillary services' automated systems such that interdependencies are identified early on in the analysis process. Additionally, automated documentation tools provide significant benefits when it comes to maintaining the documentation of implemented systems. This paper reports on the use of one automated documentation/specification tool, the Problem Statement Language/Problem Statement Analyzer, in specifying and documenting requirements for multiple hospital ancillary, or work center, systems in preparation for integration.