Transforming user needs into functional requirements for an antibiotic clinical decision support system: explicating...

Area of Science:

• Health Informatics
• Human-Computer Interaction
• Qualitative Research Methods

Background:

• Content analysis is frequently used in informatics for generating functional requirements.
• A clear explication of translating qualitative data to functional requirements enhances scientific rigor.
• User-centered approaches are crucial for developing effective informatics solutions.

Purpose of the Study:

• To describe a user-centered method for transforming focus group themes into functional requirements for informatics solutions.
• To illustrate this method's application in developing an antibiotic clinical decision support system (CDS).

Main Methods:

• A five-step approach was employed, starting with identifying information needs through focus groups.
• A coding framework was developed to refine the scope to antibiotic therapeutic planning.
• Functional requirements and informatics solutions were derived from coded qualitative data.

Main Results:

• Focus Group Study-I identified unmet therapeutic planning needs, indicating a need for an antibiotic CDS.
• Focus Group Study-II generated three informatics solutions and 13 functional requirements for the antibiotic CDS.
• Required data elements for the CDS were identified based on patient, institution, and domain themes.

Conclusions:

• The study demonstrates a replicable 5-step content analysis process for deriving functional requirements from qualitative data.
• This method was successfully applied to develop an antibiotic CDS, addressing critical prescribing needs.
• The described techniques can be adapted for developing informatics interventions in other domains.