Requirements to ultrasound imaging workstations in a Chinese hospital : A personal account
Hallvard Andreas Eriksen · 2013
The Warehousing Images in the Digital Hospital(WIDTH) project is a staff exchange project between hospitals and universities in China and Europe. The goal of the project is to establish a network in the field of medical imaging to share and complement expertise. Starting out, I present relevant literature for a Picture Archiving and Communication System(PACS) and look the architecture and workflow of a PACS. Second, I present the requirements engineering literature I reviewed to choose a method for gathering requirements for a PACS work station. I traveled to China to participate in the WIDTH project. My time in China was spent conducting structured observation of clinicians at an echo lab in the department of cardiac medicine of a hospital. The goal of these observations was to gather requirements for a PACS workstation. The information flow in more than 100 patient examinations were observed and documented. Based on the data gathered from the examinations a list of requirements was made. Due to challenges such as observing actors with a foreign language, the requirements were not sufficient for the intended use. Upon my return to Norway I focused on exploring how natural language and culture affects acceptance and implementation of information systems. I have reviewed literate and performed interviews to understand if computer systems like a PACS can be copied between cultures, and what challenges comes with copying IT systems. I have also explored if requirements engineering can be done without regards of natural language and culture. Through literature study and interviews, I have learned about several cultural factors that can affect user acceptance of IT. I have also learned that PACS can be copied across cultures but more complex systems are much harder, and requirements engineering without regards of language and culture is not a good solution.