Model-driven traceability in healthcare information systems development

To improve the quality of software used in healthcare information systems, traceability can play an important role. The concept of traceability establishes explicit trace links in the design, development and maintenance processes, keeping documentation complete and updated. Trace information allows validating bodies, domain experts, system designers and programmers to easily navigate along artefact dependencies and perform simple traceability analysis such as coverage and change impact. This paper presents a novel solution for traceability applied in model-driven development for services in a distributed healthcare environment. The results demonstrate the feasibility of explicitly modelling dependencies using a formal language such as UML. Based on the experience from implementing two full-scale homecare systems in the EU-IST MPOWER project, the potential improvements and challenges with a traceability solution are discussed.