Elicitation and prioritisation of requirements for a clinical decision support system for gait-related diseases in resource-limited settings

Abstract

Clinical Decision Support Systems (CDSS) have the potential to significantly improve healthcare quality in resource-limited settings (RLS). Despite evidence supporting the effectiveness of CDSS, their adoption and implementation rates remain low in RLS due to low levels of computer literacy among health workers, fragmented and unreliable infrastructure, and technical challenges. A thorough understanding of requirements is critical for the design of CDSS, which will be relevant to RLS. This paper explores the elicitation and prioritisation of requirements of a CDSS tailored to gait-related diseases in RLS. To do this, we conducted a qualitative literature analysis to identify potential requirements. After that, the requirements were presented to gait analysis experts for revision and prioritisation using the MoSCoW requirement prioritisation technique. The analysis of the results of the prioritisation process shows that for the functional requirements, 59.1% are fundamental and essential (Must Have), 36.3% are important but not fundamental (Should Have), 4.5% are negotiable requirements that are nice to have, but not important or fundamental (Could Have). All the non-functional requirements (100%) that pertain to usability and security were considered fundamental and essential (Must Have). This study provides a solid foundation for understanding the requirements of CDSS that are tailored to gait-related diseases in RLS. It also provides a guide for software developers and researchers on the design choices regarding the development of CDSS for RLS.